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
Tsurumi Bridge
12020-05-26T15:13:22+00:00Max Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca6993plain2020-07-28T22:41:57+00:00Max Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca69Expressing HiroshimaShikoku recalls that, after going to the movies when he was young, he and his elder brother would often stop for a cup of sweet sake at a stall at the west end of this bridge. The nostalgic lyrical context of this page is significant for what it omits. During the 1930s and 1940s, Shikoku and his two elder brothers were of the age to be conscripted as soldiers by Imperial Japan’s military and went off to war. It is their youngest brother Naoto, who never left Hiroshima, about whom Shikoku writes most vividly. “Eldest brother died at the front; the second son went missing in New Guinea. You and I were only 3 years apart in age, so before I went to the front in Manchuria, you and I were able to spend time together as adolescents and get to know one another well.” After Shikoku’s return from military service and Soviet internment in 1948, he was devastated to learn that Naoto had died from atomic bombing injuries and radiation poisoning at age 18. Naoto left behind a diary that detailed his service in homeland mobilization, the bombing, and its aftermath in painful detail. In retrospect, Shikoku traces his decision to commit himself to antiwar and antinuclear activism to this loss: “I cannot help but conclude that my life course was decided my brother’s diary.”
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12020-05-26T15:13:35+00:00Max Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca69Representing Sites of WarMax Mitchell4plain25452020-06-14T16:01:04+00:00Max Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca69
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1media/sketches_tsurumi_bridge_thumb.jpg2020-06-10T21:35:28+00:00Sketches Tsurumi Bridge4Tsurumi Bridge with Snow in the Evening as it looked in 1935, watercolor and ink on paper, 1986. Heiwa Bijutsukan, p. 22.media/sketches_tsurumi_bridge.jpgplain2020-07-28T22:40:09+00:00The Association for Preservation of Literary Materials of Hiroshimaphotograph