'The Light' - Portraits of the 'Hibakusha' at the Brunei Gallery, University of London

This exhibition will be the first occasion that these paintings have left Japan. For the past several years Professors and PhD students have been painting survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima – The ‘Hibakusha’.

 

On August 6th this year at 00.15 hours London time it will be 08.15 Japanese time and the exact moment that ‘Little Boy’ (the name of the atomic bomb used) was armed and dropped on Hiroshima. We will be holding an exhibition of 65 paintings of the ‘Hibakusha’, one for each year since the bomb was dropped. Our exhibition will last for 65 days, one day for each year since the bomb was dropped. We will be bringing over, to the private view on the 5th of August, 2 surviving Hibakusha and 2 professors of art from Hiroshima who will speak at the private view and be available for interviews. Each painting will be accompanied by a description of the situation of the survivor when the bomb was dropped. These descriptions are beautiful, harrowing and extremely poignant.

 

At the culmination of the exhibition, on the penultimate day we will be holding a ‘world peace conference’ in the lecture theatre of SOAS with speakers from Hiroshima City University, Kingston University and the University of London.

 

This is a major project between three partners and will be a unique occasion for the world to remember man’s inhumanity to man and for us collectively never to forget the horrors of war.

 

The project is supported by the Diawa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and The Japan Foundation. There will be an accompanying catalogue and published papers