Inspired by the stranger-than-fiction secret weapons that floated over America during World War II, "9000 Paper Balloons" examines distance - the distance between two friends, between two enemies, two cultures and two generations. Japanese visual artist Maiko Kikuchi and American puppeteer Spencer Lott use humor and puppetry to weave their family histories into the true story of a deadly secret weapon from WW2 - the paper balloon bomb.

This bilingual mixed media work explores the many shades of manipulation and the lengths two families, one American, and one Japanese, will go through to avoid being manipulated.