What to Know
The World Kamishibai Forum was founded in 2019 by Tara McGowan, Donna Tamaki, and Walter Ritter to inspire, instruct, and increase kamishibai activity around the world with videos, webinars, meetings, workshops, and performances. The World Kamishibai Forum founders were joined by Write Out Loud, a non-profit educational organization, already committed to kamishibai, to provide essential services and a home on the internet.
The three founders saw that an international forum dedicated to celebrating and encouraging kamishibai’s adaptations and diversifications wherever it rooted, would be essential to the successful worldwide expansion of the art form.
WKF’s first planned programming was a meeting in San Diego, California in February, 2020. When Covid-19 scuttled that plan, an alternative nine-month season of videos and online webinars about kamishibai worldwide was conceived and presented by WKF.
This ambitious program opened on September 19, 2020. It includes 20 videos and 9 webinars featuring 29 kamishibai artists from 10 countries on 5 continents reaching 288 registered participants from 41 countries.
Plans for 2024-25 and beyond are now being planned.
Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership provided essential support for the start-up of the World Kamishibai Forum.
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The World Kamishibai Forum (WKF) began about 5 years ago with the idea of connecting like minded people who discovered the world of Kamiahibai. Out of this grew the desire to share resources, techniques, and shared experiences and challenges. As a result, a group of resources has been developed and shared for FREE on this unique website. We hope you find WKF 2024-25 useful and enjoyable!