Popular Protest in Post War Japan: The Antiwar Art of Shikoku GorōMain MenuOverviewThis 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.Atom Bomb Poetry CollectionThe Angry JizoHiroshima SketchesGlossaryResourcesAcknowledgmentsAnn Sherif99c9850c7ffbc663daa16feec7b9f1dd71ca3e2e
Angry Jizo Title Image
1media/angry_jizo_title_page_thumb.jpg2020-06-10T21:35:11+00:00Max Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca6992Jizo on Left and Girl with flowers on right (title page of Angry Jizo)plain2020-06-14T16:16:31+00:00Kin no Hoshisha20191103162121photograph20191103162121Max Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca69
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12020-05-26T15:13:43+00:00Legacy of Angry Jizo4plain2020-06-24T21:37:11+00:00Like Shikoku, Yamaguchi was already a well-established and experienced antinuclear and antiwar activist by the time she wrote Angry Jizo in the 1970s. In the 1950s, Yamaguchi engaged in public advocacy for hibakusha, but increasingly became a prominent figure in local and national antiwar and antinuclear groups. She joined a Hiroshima group “Mothers Against the Bomb” along with other prominent writers such as Kurihara Sadako. Yamaguchi stepped forth in 1963 as a leader in the Spiritual Adoption project that provided economic and spiritual support to children orphaned in the atomic bombings. She argued that Japanese people should make their own version of the Occupation-era Moral Adoption project originally spearheaded by American journalist Norman Cousins.
Yamaguchi, Shikoku, and other leftist activists persisted in their leftist and Communist Party affiliations despite attacks by rightest and mainstream politicians and media. In the 1970s, conservative politicians bashed the Japan Teachers Union (Nikkyōso), and public school textbooks that contained antiwar or antinuclear content as leftist or communist-influenced. The Angry Jizo was one of several books harshly criticized.