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
May Day Placards 1950, Hayashi Sachiko
1media/may-day-placards-bottomleft_thumb.jpg2020-06-10T21:35:18+00:00Max Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca6992Our Poems member join May Day 1950 protest. Hayashi Sachiko, right. Placard reads “Poems that Spit Fire!! Antiwar Poets Group.”plain2020-06-14T22:07:38+00:001950The Association for Preservation of Literary Materials of HiroshimaphotographMax Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca69
12020-05-26T15:13:31+00:00Hayashi Sachiko3plain2021-01-14T22:24:41+00:00Our Poems Member Hayashi Sachiko was 16 years old and working at a factory with other mobilized high school student at the time of the bombing. Her mother and younger brother perished when their house collapsed and burned; her father escaped from the house, but died a month later of radiation sickness. Hayashi published poems from the first issue of Our Poems. With mentoring from Tōge and other circle members, Hayashi produced her most admired poem about the bombing “Hiroshima’s Sky” in December 1950. Hayashi wrote about more than the bomb. Several of her poems concern the July 1950 arrest of young Japanese and Korean antiwar protesters accused of violating Occupation regulations forbidding criticism of the U.S. Among the protesters was Hayashi’s boyfriend, an Our Poems and Japan Communist Party member, who was forced underground.
