平和のために東大生ができること

 Hi, I’m Hijiri Tomiyama.

As my friends explained already, we held the exibition of Hibakushas’ testimonies at the University of Tokyo.

 Our group wanted to show Hibakushas’  

a kind of  philosophical views of  their experiences through this work.  So we tried to choose pictures which express their cheerful faces and  phrases which quote their positive statements.

 

 There are those who hate the war or the atomic  bomb itself , and those who hate the Japan and America because of their mistakes , and many of  them tell that they are distressed by a feeling of  guilt about their survival.In fact,we don’t experience the atomic bomb , so we can only image their  physical and mental pain and feel so sorry. Their conflicts are too complicated for us to  understand completely. They are tormented  by the fact that even though a lot of their family and friends died , they still survive.                They say  “we were lucky enough”.

 However , in spite of their hard experiences ,  they have to get over it and continue to live in this world.  One of Hibakushas’ said that “It’s part of my life , actually”.  We cannot and don’t want to believe that such a cruel event  was real , but for them , it was a crucial part of their life .  But it seems that they are accepting their experience  as reality for me. When we heard their testimonies ,  we feel not only their grief but also their strength                        from their attitude.

Thank you for your reading.

Hi I’m Mizuki, a second-year student of the University of Tokyo. I’m going to write a short description of the works of my group in this article.

 

 

Many survivors of nuclear bombing say “it’s couldn’t be understood by a person didn’t experience.” How we should face this distance.

 

The upper statement is English translation of what we made as an introduction of our works when we exhibit them. This is the most important point of it and that’s all. I do not want to discuss in detail it in this article, and also I do not think I could. We can argue that this sense of impossibility was the very motive to make these works.

The work in the left named “Yakeato” is made of two form board. One is printed with an experience of a survivor and put behind, and another is put in front of the board with experience. The front board was melted by roasting and has many holes.

 

 

The work in the right named “Zanshi” is made of one board. It’s also printed with an experience of another survivor. However, the letters are extremely pale so that you cannot read them without coming close almost touching it.

We do not intend to insist one just explication, of cause. We want to depict the complexity and diversity which we cannot describe definitely but exist certainly.

 

Thank you for your reading.

M.U.

 

Hello, I’m Miki Okamoto.

As Yuta wrote yesterday on this blog, we exhibited testimonies of hibakushas at a gallery in our campus. Yuta has already written about the process of this exhibition and carried some pictures on this blog. So I’d like to introduce a work 0f our group.

Our group used four pictures to show visitors the incurable scar on the body of hibakushas. They are still suffered from physical pain over 66 years since August 1945. Time does’t cure thier pain. One of the hibakushas said that “I still suffer from this scar. I always feel a piercing pain as if someone poked me with knife or pencil.”

In addition, the endless mental damage of hibakushas compares to the testimony which was written in helical manner. The shape of spiral indicates that hibakushas can’t diminish their scar on their body but also they can’t escape from their awful memory of atomic bomb infinitely. They still suffer from continuous pain both physically and mentally. We wanted to tell visitors this fact and want them to think about pain of hibakushas again and more carefully.  

We tend to turn away from horrible scar of this tragic incident but we want to say that everyone should look this fact with profound consideration.

I hope that this work will give everyone opportunity to think of it again.