This Year's Theme

MIGRATION: Change & Exchange

In 2009, the Powell Street Festival explores the concept of Migration as it is expressed within Japanese Canadian identity. For the 33rd festival, the theme of Migration is negotiated on both the macro and micro levels. Allowing for the expression of the Japanese Canadian cross-cultural migratory experience and the fusion that has resulted, Migration also explores intergenerational and interdisciplinary exchange. It presents a temporal and spatial migration back to Japanese hereditary traditions as well as the exploration of contemporary media, technology, arts and cultures, and the new trajectories that they provide.

Cultural change is so often a result of migration--people adapting to foreign lands and communities. Although the migratory experience can heighten the hold on hereditary traditions, culture itself is by no means static; it is in a constant state of evolution. However, the speed of cultural evolution has been compounded by the rise of globalization and the subsequent decay of geographical barriers. People, ideas, and cultural expressions have greater mobility. The resulting exchanges have born forth fusions of seemingly disparate cultures.

In ancient times, Japan borrowed many things from their neighbour China, including written language, pottery, martial arts, and religion. However, in the contemporary era, Japan has extended its absorption of culture beyond Asian borders. Renowned for their contemporary anime and manga, the Japanese have borne this distinctive aesthetic by fusing Japanese style with Western animation and comics that traversed the waters post WWII. Whereas some of these cultural elements are now perceived as distinctly Japanese, the Powell Street Festival redefines these ideas of the traditional and the contemporary. Bridging a multiplicity of cultures, the Powell Street Festival demarcates a fusion territory of hybrid Japanese Canadian identity.