Nuclear Futures

International collaborator

A third generation hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) from Hiroshima, visual artist Yukiyo Kawano re-evaluates her own condition as part of a diaspora. Her process of dissembling the known (decipherable) history locates Kawano’s work somewhere in between language and the memories of place. Since 2011, she has been creating life-size renditions of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kawano builds the sculptures by using strands of her hair to stitch together old kimonos of women in Hiroshima. Profoundly influenced by her personal and family history, she writes, “Perhaps within and among a discourse of grandmothers’ anecdotes might draw myself out from the context of the historical condition”.