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Popular Protest in Post War Japan: The Antiwar Art of Shikoku Gorō Overview This exhibit explores the vibrant grassroots artistic culture of Hiroshima, known as the atomic bombed city. From 1949 through the 1990s, local artist Shikoku Gorō advanced a bold and democratic vision for cultural life by bringing poetry to the streets & mobilizing visual arts to represent the vitality, beauty, and complexity of Hiroshima. The exhibit explores a set of influential books, along with other examples of socially committed art. Shikoku and his circles of collaborators illuminated pathways to civic engagement for the citizens of Hiroshima—hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), vets, & younger generations.

We Will Tell the Stories

“We will tell the stories and sing the stories of the love and anger and resentment of people who were trampled on in the homeland.” Shikoku created the image by spreading paint on the soles of boots and stamping them on paper in order to suggest oppression but also the marching feet of of protestors.

It wasn’t unusual for a sympathetic passerby to warn the poets that the authorities were on their way, which allowed the activists to quickly pull down the posters and nonchalantly walk away—or just abandon the poems and run. The multiple tack holes in the corners of the extant posters demonstrate that the Circle posted them several times.

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