Recollecting Hiroshima

Curator’s note:

This Japanese anime film depicts Keiji Nakazawa’s personal reflections on being a Hiroshima survivor (or ‘Hibakusha’).

Nakazawa’s vivid animations of the effects of the Hiroshima nuclear blast and its fallout are truly haunting — calling into question America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, first on 6 August 1945, and a second time at Nagasaki three days later.

More significantly still, what Hadashi No Gen forces us to think about is not only the boundless mental and bodily pain, suffering and vulnerability caused by nuclear war, but that nuclear harms also violate the global biosphere on which all life depends.