chibisoku 2025: a mini ensoku series - Kikiai 聴き合い Collaborative

chibisoku (チビ足)

A mini ensoku series, chibisoku aims to foster intimate learning, connection and dialogue for young-ish Japanese Canadians through a series of six events in 2025.

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about the series

chibisoku 2025 is a series of six events encouraging intimate learning, connection, and dialogue. This series serves as a response to participant feedback from our most recent event, ensoku 2024: Tashme Obon, which highlighted a desire for smaller-scale, local programming.

By creating space for learning about shared cultural heritage in intentional, supportive environments, chibisoku aims to build long-lasting connections between generations and across Nikkei communities through individual workshops. These workshops center young-ish Japanese Canadians, many of whom grew up disconnected from these customs and the overall community as a result of internment.

Each chibisoku event addresses one or more of Kikiai Collaborative’s guiding interests in history, politics, art, and culture.

Illustrations by Erica H Isomura.

explore the events

chibisoku 2025

Tsunagu Film Screening & Dialogue

March 1, 2025 | 4-6 pm
Explore intergenerational experiences of Japanese Canadians through Tsunagu, a film produced by Lucy Komori and Connie Kadota. Followed by a group discussion.

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Taiko Workshop

April 2025
Learn the basics of taiko drumming and a brief history of Katari Taiko, Canada’s first taiko ensemble, in this one-day workshop with Leslie Komori and Joyce Chong.

Hastings Park Tour

May 2025
Navigate the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) grounds at Hastings Park used to detain 8,000 Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Led by the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre.

Art Workshop

September 2025
Details TBA.

Hanafuda Workshop

October 2025
Learn about the history of Hanafuda and the presence of the game in Japanese American incarceration camps with Seattle-based artist Marie Okuma Johnston. Participants will also learn to play two-person Koi-Koi.

Photography Activity

TBA
Explore Nikkei identity and community through this disposable camera project.

volunteer with us

Interested in volunteering at a chibisoku event or helping organize one? Fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch.

meet the organizers

Ashley Sugimoto

Ashley Sugimoto (she/her) is a yonsei (fourth-generation), mixed-race Japanese Canadian filmmaker. Her work is driven by her mixed roots, exploring mixed identity, and the intergenerational trauma within diaspora communities. She graduated with a BFA in film production from Simon Fraser University In 2018. In the same year, her short documentary, Aiko (2016) went on to stream through Yahoo Japan for 2 years. Accolades include an Award of Excellence, and Best Acting Ensemble for her grad film, Shards (2018). Her most recent works include her award-winning screenplays, Internode (2022), and Safe Places (2022). Currently, she is researching for her first feature-length documentary about the colonization of Canada’s Archives and how they have affected today’s biracial Japanese Canadians and their ties to their culture. Ashley has received mentorship through VIFF Catalyst. She is also a recent screenwriting panelist for GEMFest.

Kailey Fukushima

Kailey Fukushima (she/her) is a yonsei of mixed Japanese and Irish heritage. She was born and raised in Treaty 7 territory (Calgary, AB), and now lives on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver, BC). Kailey is a librarian and archivist by training and currently works as an academic librarian at University Canada West. Outside of work, Kailey loves playing soccer, cooking, and spending time in the sun.

Kayla Isomura

Kayla Isomura is a photographer and storyteller who unintentionally stumbled into the Japanese Canadian community in 2014. As a multigenerational settler of Chinese and Japanese descent, Kayla’s work has been largely influenced by their family’s story of displacement. Through this lens, Kayla often draws on intersecting themes of identity, memory and place. Kayla extends this lens into community by aiming to build inclusive spaces, leading them to co-organize previous ensoku events with Kikiai Collaborative in 2019 and 2023. Outside of Kikiai, Kayla organizes all-bodies sumo in Vancouver. Most notably, Kayla is recognized for The Suitcase Project, a multimedia exhibition produced for the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre in 2018.

Lisa Uyeda

Lisa Uyeda (she/her) is a yonsei from Toronto, Ont., currently residing on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations in Vancouver, BC. For work, Lisa is the Collections Manager at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre and is dedicated to preserving Japanese Canadian history and heritage. She is a founding member of Kikiai Collaborative since its precursor 2014 Japanese Canadian Young Leaders Conference and helped organize ensoku 2019 and 2023. As a descendant of survivors of the forced uprooting and dispossession during the Second World War, she is exploring her own healing journey through art, connection, and learning.

Mika Ishizaki

Mika Ishizaki is issei who originates from Tokyo but has lived in Canada for 28 years, living in the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish nations now. She is working towards getting registration as an Architect at Urban Arts Architecture, which works on many socially-focused projects across BC. She believes that her work and the work of architects in general should strive towards equality in our cities by preserving and celebrating diversity. She joined Kikiai Collaborative as a participant in their events first, but joined as an organizer for ensoku 2023.

Rob Takashi Duffy

Robert Takashi Duffy (He/Him) is a yonsei mixed-race Japanese and Irish Canadian from Montréal, Québec (Kanien’kehà:ka) and Ottawa, Ontario (Anishinabe and Algonquin Nation) and currently resides on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem First Nation) in British Columbia. He volunteers with the National Association of Japanese Canadians Young Leaders Committee (NAJC YLC) to provide a space for Japanese Canadian young people to remember the past, recognize the present, and imagine the future of the Japanese Canadian community. He works as an occupational hygienist committed to improving health and safety for workers in British Columbia and is a published researcher on public health misinformation and children’s physical activity.