Yokai Senjafuda

Digital Translation by Blake Hardin

An Inside Look on Blake’s Yokai Senjafuda Digital Translation

 

The Yōkai Senjafuda digital translation project is a translation of the already existent Yōkai Senjafuda digital exhibition from Omeka S to WordPress. The Yōkai Senjafuda project itself explores the large collection of Yōkai (Japanese ghosts and monsters) Senjafuda (tiny slips of paper) at the University of Oregon. The project goes into detail on the rich history of senjafuda as a religious practice in ancient Japan and its evolution as an artform in contemporary Japanese culture. The project also explains the cultural significance of the Yōkai, both their mythology and their prevalence on senjafuda. The project shows the transformation of Yōkai Senjafuda from their origins as pastings on temples in the 17th century to their value as collectors items today. 

This translation sought to recreate the same user experience as the original project while using WordPress instead of Omeka. The end goal was to create as near-identical of a replica of the project as possible on WordPress to compare the unique elements of each platform via a side-by-side comparison. While some of the functionality of Omeka is difficult to recreate on WordPress, many of the design elements of the Yōkai Senjafuda project have been implemented in the WordPress site so as to provide as accurate a translation as possible. 

Reflections by the student who created the digital translation