The Night Parade (2023) is a speculative memoir written by my sister, Jami Nakamura Lin.
From 2021 - 2023 I illustrated a full body of work for the memoir, including 16 chapter headers, interior cover, page-break inclusions, textured patterns, and the art for the cover.
My goal in illustrating The Night Parade was to depict yо̄kai that had escaped the idealized, frozen concept of ancient Japan, and had re-rooted in the complexities of my multi-cultural Japanese American experience. I drew concepts and iconography stemming not only from historical renderings of yо̄kai—— from sources like 14th century Hyakki Yagyo emaki picture scroll attributed to Mitsunobu Tosa, the 18th century yо̄kai encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien, the art exhibited in Yо̄kai: Ghosts, Demons, and Monsters of Japan, edited by Felicia Katz-Harris—— but also contemporary Japanese anime—— Gegege No Kitaro, Yokai Watch, Studio Ghibli, Pokemon—— Asian American media like Usagi Yojimbo and Mulan.
The backgrounds for the yо̄kai and other Taiwanese and Okinawan figures are based on settings from my family's migration path: Islands in East China Sea, the farmlands of California, the desert of Amache Incarceration Camp, the clear cut old-growth forests of the midwest plains, Jami’s backyard garden in the Chicago suburbs.
Each of the humanoid yо̄kai were modeled after Jami’s and my sister and cousins, who’s likenesses I gathered in screenshots and selfies from their dorms and homes across the continent. I choses to add symbols and artifacts from our mixed yonsei upbringing: a Locals zori, a purity ring, a Magic Eraser, a Nintendo 64 game system. Finally, I painted each chapter illustration in gouache and watercolor, then cut the paintings out with a scalpel. The kanji characters for kishotenketsu that begin parts I, II, III, and IV were brushpainted by our ama—— our father’s mother—— Toshiko Lin.
As an artist who lives and creates in the heartland of an Empire, I wanted to visualize spirits that mourn war, displacement, and loss of cultural memory. The spirits I painted for The Night Parade evoke cycles, release rage, channel joy, embody in betweenness, and remember what’s been lost. I hope my visions of yо̄kai and spirits who have traveled across occupied land as well as time will inspire other diasporic people to face and heal the ghosts that haunt us.
written in spring, 2023