Pema Tshering

Pema’s art exchange program was based on his book Lama, for which he invited a Fukuoka manga artist to create original images. Lama means “monk,” and refers to the guardian monk of Thimphu Valley, from which Bhutan’s capital Thimphu gets its name in the story of Tsheten’s childhood. The artist that Pema chose was Kiyohara Yukimi, a researcher at Kyushu Zoukei Art College, who worked with a lecturer at the college, Morishita Shinya, to create a fully digitized body of work. At their first meeting, Pema gave a detailed brief on the story, its characters, clothing and the temples that appear in the story, showing images from his computer along with detailed drawings. The project was initially set to be 30 pages but due to the tight timeframe, finished at 10 pages. Kiyohara worked hard on every drawing, bringing them each week to Pema, who would mark them up in red pen with particular attention to the traditional Gho worn by the youth in the story, along with the temples, clouds and flames.
In this way, the first Japanese-Bhutanese manga collaboration was born.

Kiyohara Yukimi who studies manga drew pictures for a story Pema made, which be- came the first collaborative manga between Japan and Bhutan.

Film screening of 4 works presented in FT5 and produced by Pema and Dechen Roder in "Focus on Asia International Film Festival Fukuoka 2014."

September 24 – ‘Turning Bhutanese Stories into Paintings’
Participants: five elementary and junior high school students from Yakatabaru Special Needs School (venue: Yakatabaru Special Needs School)

October 19 – ‘Artist Talk’
Participants: 68 general admissions (venue: Ajibi Hall)

October 18 – Hakata Riverain Lantern Festival
Venue: Hakata Riverain Festa Square