Interview with Saira Chambers, Chicago’s Leading Promoter of Japanese Arts
Partial image of one of the four surviving transoms, or “ranma” panels, from Ho-o-den (“Phoenix Pavilion”)
Saira Chambers promotes understanding of Japanese culture and arts
Saira Chambers is a familiar face on Chicago’s Japanese arts and culture scenes.
As Executive Director of the Japanese Arts Foundation and Director of the Japanese Culture Center, Chambers is busy developing, organizing and running numerous events, exhibitions and workshops to promote understanding of Japanese culture and arts. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Garden of the Phoenix Foundation since April 2022, engaging in promoting public awareness of the Garden of the Phoenix in Jackson Park. From 2017 to 2019, she was a member of the Board of Directors for the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce.
What drives her to do what she does? Where does her enthusiasm for Japanese arts come from? The Chicago Shimpo had a conversation with Chambers to find out.
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Q: When and how did you get interested in Japan in the first place?
Chambers: That’s really difficult to say. It might be when I was a little girl and home sick, watching the Shogun series on the couch with my dad.
During my undergraduate studies, I was majoring in art history, and I took another major to make my degree stronger. I was always interested in the way characters in [a Japanese anime like] “Sailor Moon” were influenced and created on the foundation of ukiyo-e and traditional Japanese arts. So, I decided to take Japanese studies and art history as a double major.
During my time at DePaul University, I became quite close to my mentor Yuki Miyamoto sensei [who is a Japanese faculty there]. I went to Japan for the first time with her, to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There, I learned about hibakusha [victims of the 1945 atomic bombings in the two cities] and the history of the bombings at the museums. The exhibits were very moving. After this experience, it was difficult not to advocate for them and for nuclear nonproliferation.
After returning from Japan, I became involved in peace advocacy and continued to work with the Hiroshima Memorial Institute and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I went back to Hiroshima in 2016 and worked for the city’s annual commemoration ceremony, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Day. These experiences influence my work here in Chicago a lot.
Q: The Japanese Culture Center here hosted the Hiroshima Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibition in October 2016, where surviving artifacts from the bombings were displayed – things like pieces of charred roof tiles and walls, charred water bottles and sandals worn by victims of the bomb. I remember it also featured paper cranes hand-folded by President Obama, who visited Hiroshima in May 2016, and by Sadako Sasaki, a victim of the Hiroshima bombing who became to be widely known as a symbol of hibakusha.
Chambers: Right. I brought the exhibition to Chicago from the Museum in Hiroshima. That was like a welcome-back-to-Chicago event for me. I assumed the role of the Director of the Japanese Culture Center that year.
Before that, from 2014 to 2016, I was in Seattle attending Seattle University’s graduate school studying Arts Leadership and Museum Studies. I chose Seattle because I wanted to see what it would be like to work with a more robust Japanese and Japanese cultural community than I had experienced in Chicago. Fortunately, I was able to work for the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience while I was there (from September 2015 to August 2016).
My experience with the Museum really influenced my work. The Museum doesn’t have any curators. Instead, every exhibition is designed by the community that’s behind it. I remember when a Cambodian-American community put up an exhibition. They did everything, designing the whole thing from the photos included and stories told, to the objects on display. They were in control. That way, they were able to speak for themselves, rather than having someone who hasn’t lived their experiences speak for them. Seeing this firsthand really had a major impact on my life. I wrote my graduate thesis on this community-driven exhibition model, where there is no curator but the people from the community tell their own stories.
Before my Seattle experience, I worked for the Field Museum in Chicago from June to September 2014. I was with the Anthropology Collection, doing collection care work with the Japanese and East Asian collections. It was quite different than exhibition and curatorial work.
My experience at the Field Museum, including taking care of objects both on display and those kept in the museum collections helped me understand how objects are cared for and preserved.
Q: It must have helped you when you formed the nonprofit Japanese Arts Foundation in 2016.
Chambers: Yes. I joined the Japanese Culture Center in 2016. It was not a nonprofit organization, so I created the Foundation as a nonprofit that year.
I worked for the Japanese Culture Center for two years, and then took a position at the Art Institute of Chicago working in school programs and education for the East Asian collections in December 2018. I was there until December 2020, planning student tours and professional development programs while developing teaching resources using the Institute’s East Asia & Japanese collections.
It was really a wonderful way for me to get better connected with the learning community in Chicago. When I was working at the Art Institute, one of the objects that caught my imagination was the four transoms, or “ranma” panels, from Ho-o-den, the Phoenix Pavilion that was constructed in Jackson Park for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. [Those four panels were rescued from the 1946 fire that destroyed the Pavilion and are now on display at the Art Institute.]
The ranma panels can be seen in a photo showing the inside of Ho-o-den from the 1893 World’s Columbian Expo
I learned all about Ho-o-den during the two years I was at the Art Institute, and I developed teaching resources to be used in classroom about Japanese arts and history. During that time, I reached out to Bob Karr [who is a known Japan expert in the area]. I was so moved by those ranma panels and I wanted to know more about them. Through Bob, I learned more about Ho-o-den and what Bob and others were trying to do with the Garden of the Phoenix. I wanted to get involved.
Ho-o-den at the 1893 World’s Columbian Expo in Chicago
When I left the Art Institute and returned to the Japanese Culture Center, my number-one goal was to work on the Garden, because I knew now how special it was.
Q: I can see how much you love the Garden through the recent events you organized at the Garden, such as Hanami (cherry blossom viewing in spring) and Tsukimi (moon viewing in autumn).
Chambers: The Chicago Park District has been such a good partner for us. In the Jackson Park and surrounding neighborhoods where the Garden is located, arts programs for youth and adults are less common, let alone Japanese art and cultural programs. It’s an incredible opportunity for us to serve broader audiences outside of our Lakeview headquarters.
The Hanami event at the Garden this year had 6,000 visitors in just 3 hours. This was bolstering for us to see how valued our work in the Garden is to the community. The challenge for us is how to expand the space to accommodate all those visitors, because we are really happy that so many people love it so much.
In addition to Hanami, we also host a Bon Festival [a mid-summer festival welcoming ancestral spirits in August] and Tsukimi. This summer, we brought something new, the Toro Nagashi ceremony, or floating lanterns for the dead, on August 6. It’s personally important to me as it held every year the day the Hiroshima was bombed. During my time working for the City of Hiroshima and the Peace Museum, I worked on similar events, and attended the city’s Toro Nagashi. I was so moved.
Last year, my mentor Miyamoto sensei, along with Japanese History professor Dr. Kerry Ross, asked me to co- teach a class at DePaul with them. It was titled, “Art in the Atomic Age: Geographies of Displacement”. The course explored the use of art in healing trauma, loss and identity and the sense of not belonging.
The students were given a project – a project of creating lanterns for Toro Nagashi. We first talked about the wartime internment of the Japanese Americans, Hiroshima & Nagasaki atomic bombings, and anything that has to do with the U.S.-Japan relationship here in Chicago, including the lost Ho-o-den. We looked at how artists who created art around these topics and experiences used art as a medium to process trauma, loss, and belonging. Then, the students were asked to decorate their lanterns with sentiments and wishes they wanted to express.
The lanterns were exhibited, and then they were put on the water in the Garden of the Phoenix, following the typical procedure of Toro Nagashi. The exhibition attracted a lot of people, and they wanted to know how it’s done so they could also be involved. So we’ll open up Toro Nagashi to anyone who wants to join next year. We are currently looking for grants, companies, and donors who would like to underwrite this event to allow everyone to have a lantern and join this meaningful event.
Americans don’t know about these wonderful traditions that help heal our losses and pain. An event like Toro Nagashi is a symbolic and lovely way for people to come together as a community, when things are difficult and people are struggling.
A photo of World’s Columbian Expo shows Ho-o-den in the foreground
The Japanese Arts Foundation is currently hosting an exhibition called “Kintsugi: Healing through Japanese Art” at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago’s North Side. It’s an exhibition of art works by Mami Takahashi and runs until March next year. The exhibition also uses Japanese art, Kintsugi specifically, to explore the healing that is inspired by it, especially, after our collaborative experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum has permanent displays about the history of surgical science, including that of Japan.
Q: You have so many connections with local communities here, not just with the Japanese community. You were involved in the “Ikebana Walk” exhibition in Lakeview’s Southport Corridor earlier this year, for instance. How did you make it happen?
Chambers: I used to sit on at the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce Board years ago, so I kind of understood a little bit how they work. I knew that they were desperate to help local businesses bring back customers after the pandemic. I had this idea to help.
Ikebana, or Japanese flower arrangement, is meant to be viewed from one perspective only. And so are storefronts – they are it’s seen from just one perspective, the perspective of pedestrians. That’s how I came up with the idea of storefront flower arrangement, which visitors can enjoy as they stroll along the street from one store to another. During the pandemic this was especially important, as outdoor experiences where folks can social distance were imperative. I pitched the idea to [the Chamber of Commerce] and they liked it. We are going to do this every year. I hope we can do something new like this each year.
It’s also a great opportunity to inform the broader community about the deeper meaning behind many of the “Zen arts” like Ikebana. It is an artform that has deep meaning and speaks to both life and death in its creation. It’s a real gift to be able to create these meaningful interactions with those who might like to learn more, or even practice these arts themselves.
This pandemic has challenged us all to be more creative. We had to scale back our in-person classes into virtual ones only, and that worried a lot of people. Japanese art classes were always taught hands-on, after all.
But then, online classes ended up attracting more students than ever. Now we have people from Arkansas, Canada, Japan and all over the world joining our classes online. It doesn’t matter where you are or any physical constraints you may have.
Saira Chambers
Q: What’s your future plan with the Japanese Arts Foundation?
Chambers: In the short term, we will host a Japanese film series at Logan Theatre on Saturday, December 3rd. It is titled, “Magical Girl Moment”, and will explore the Magical Girl / Mahou Shoujo genre in anime to celebrate women in a myriad of conversations and programs. This program is supported by our amazing partners at BeamSuntory, and includes highballs among a night of fun. There will be more events like these coming to Logan Theatre every quarter next year.
Another event is the online streaming of “Tokyo House Party.” We are not doing it now, but we are thinking about doing it in-person quarterly next year.
We are still working closely with the Tokyo House Party members, who keep offering something new. The Tokyo House Party crew have become board members of the Japanese Arts Foundation. For example, one of them is a game designer, Derrick Fields, who teaches at Northwestern University. He makes Japanese-themed games, and released a game called Onsen Master in September. Another, Van Paugam, is a City Pop / シティ・ポップ DJ. The work of the Japanese Arts Foundation is impossible without their support and from our larger community to attend our events and engage in our work.
This is not final, but we are also thinking about doing an exhibition next year about atomic scientists and the Doomsday Clock, nuclear crisis and the impact of radiation on humans.
In the Garden of the Phoenix, we will continue with Hanami, Kodomonohi [Children’s Festival in May], Bon Fest, Toro Nagashi, and Tsukimi. We will also keep hosting exhibitions as well as a fundraising gala.
Q: You know so much about Japan and have a lot of connections with both Japanese and American communities. It seems like you are in an excellent position to bridge the gap between the two.
Chambers: That’s all I want to do. When we did the lantern project at DePaul, I asked the students in the class how they felt about themselves. They all expressed the feeling that they don’t belong in some capacity, though the degree and reasons were different. But when I asked them to think about the fact that they can all relate to here, it brought us closer together. That was the most wonderful experience.
Remember the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle that I worked for? There was no curator there, and people spoke for themselves through their exhibitions. I think it’s so important because that’s what people care about – to be part of the exhibition and their history, instead of being spoken for by someone else. I think that’s the vision that represents what I want to do.
Q: Thank you very much for your time.