By:Megan Clark Campus Life Editor
The art installation precariously hanging in Hamersly Library is part of a larger art installation that will stay at Western from Sept. 21, 2015 to Dec. 4, 2015. The art showcase titled Black Rain, was created by Yukiyo Kawano.
Kawano is a second generation Hiroshima bomb survivor, and works as an artist in Portland, Ore. The first floor installation features two low-hanging, large sculptures surrounded by origami cranes.
The two large structures are “Fat Man,” the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and “Little Boy,” the bomb dropped on Nagasaki at the end of World War II. The cranes are symbolic of peace; students are invited to fold one and contribute to the work.
On Oct. 7, 2015, the artist was able to come to Western and give a talk about her show.
Kawano discussed the victims of the bombings. There are a “vast amount of hibakusha (bombing victims) living in the shadow, who didn’t have a voice … I’m hoping that my art creates a safe environment to talk about these issues.”
When asked about her process – which Kawano said can be very messy – the artist also mentioned the feelings she experiences during the artmaking process. Kawano stated, “I ask myself, ‘Who am I really, to spend so much time on art?’” She dwells on the fact that she comes from a culture where women are expected to be domestic; breaking this social norm causes her a lot of guilt.
The artist’s work is very personal to her, which can be seen in the use of her own hair to sew together the bombs. When asked about this, she said, “My hair going down the drain, when I wash my hair is so horrifying for me … it links to a horror site that I saw again and again growing up in Hiroshima: the loss of women’s long black hair due to radiation sickness.”
A member from the audience asked her about the Fukushima nuclear disaster that happened in 2011. “Fukushima is happening now,” Kawano replied, “but it will be history very soon….part of the past is now contaminated.”
Her art pieces on the second floor are of a much smaller scale in comparison to the large bombs. One wall is lined with sketches of “Little Boy;” the pages feature the same repeated image of Kawano wearing her grandmother’s kimono, which had been used to make the bomb.
Across from this, the sketches for “Fat Man” lay out on a table, overlapped with a transparent sheet. Printed on the sheet are conversations that Kawano had had with bomb survivors, both in Japanese and the English translation.
Referencing how language and memory can be ever changing and easily distorted, Kawano said, “When changing the language, the meaning and nuance can shift, so there is a veil.”
In the past, “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” have been accompanied by Butoh, a style of Japanese dance theater that arose in 1959. According to Kawano, “The movement is capturing the unseen and listening to the silence.” The dance can symbolize konpaku, the space between life and death, which, according to Kawano, allows people to confront their own uncertainty.
She hopes to find dancers at Western who might be interested in Butoh, hinting that during the time the installation is at Western, a performance could accompany her piece.
In response to the first floor installation, Leona, a graduate student working on her master’s in teaching, said, “It’s interesting… it’s forcing me to look at art from a different angle.” Jerrie Lee Parpart, exhibit and archives coordinator, said that she felt Kawano’s art fit well with the other World War II era art being displayed at the library now and in the future.
Joleen Braasch, a senior education major, said, “I really appreciate Yuki’s work. She did a wonderful job at evoking emotion. And that’s what we need to avoid future nuclear situations; we need to remember.”
