Atomic Cowboy/Take it home exhibition - Ramandeep Kaur

 Part 1 - Essay

When we visited the NJCU art exhibition, two shows were presented like a none, not repeat the error, curated by Souya Handa, and the other was The Atomic Cowboy- The Daze After by Nobuho Nagasawa. Both focused on the long lasting effects of nuclear weapons and how people often ignore or forget the damage caused by them. Handa’s exhibition told the story from the uranium mines in the Congo to the Manhattan Project and later the Fukushima disaster. It showed how the history of nuclear weapons is not just about one country but about all of humanity. Nagasawa’s work showed how Hollywood once ignored the truth about radiation exposure.The main themes of these exhibitions were memory, responsibility, and the danger of repeating the same mistakes. I think their messages were definitely activist because they made people face uncomfortable truths about war and how humans keep choosing destruction over peace. Also with one of the artworks showing all the bombs that were dropped for trials and test purposes.As Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert write in The Art of Activism, “Art and activism are both about imagining the world differently and then working to make that vision real”(Duncombe & Lambert, 2021, p. 10). By connecting history, politics, and human suffering, the curator and artists inspire people to think about peace and responsibility, not just destruction. The exhibition also reflects what bell hooks wrote in Understanding Patriarchy: “Most of us learned patriarchal attitudes in our family of origin” (hooks, 2000, p. 2). This idea connects to the way nuclear dominance and political power are inherited systems of control, showing how societies often repeat harmful patterns instead of breaking them. Just like patriarchy teaches people to value strength and authority over understanding, the global race for nuclear weapons shows a belief that power matters more than peace or empathy. Authors, historians, and curators can all be activists by using their work to educate others, protect the truth, and inspire people to stand up against injustice. Through their writing, art, and research, they can reach both the mind and the heart, helping turn awareness into real action such as artwork in this case.

Part 2 - Artwork

Kei Ito, Burning Away (Canvas - Light and Honey)

                                                          

Burning Away by Kei Ito this piece is made up of dark, layered images that the artist created using light and honey. The materials are deeply personal to Ito because they connect to his family’s history and trauma from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which took many lives, including his grandfather’s. When the bomb exploded, it created a fireball as hot as the surface of the sun, burning and vaporizing everything near it. Survivors were left with terrible wounds and had to treat their burns with honey, cooking oil, or even motor oil because there was no real medicine. Ito used these same materials to represent both the pain and the attempt to heal after destruction. The textures in the piece almost look like burned skin or ashes, which makes it emotional and hard to look at, but in a way that feels important. The patterns change depending on the type of oil used, and they even look like cells under a microscope, showing how the damage from the bomb lives on through generations. I think Ito’s purpose was to remind people that healing doesn’t just happen physically but emotionally and historically too.

Nobuho Nagasawa, How to Survive a Nuclear War #2, 1992 (silkscreen on acetate)

Another artwork that I think shows art activism is How to Survive a Nuclear War #2 (1992) by Nobuho Nagasawa. The piece shows a woman calmly packing food like bread and milk after a nuclear explosion, but what really caught my attention was the shadow behind her. The shadow represents the marks left behind by people who were evaporated by the blast, their bodies completely gone but their outlines burned into the ground. It feels haunting and sad, like a reminder that those people were once alive. The shadow also seems like a wall that separates the calm image of survival from the awful reality of what really happens during nuclear war. I think this work is activist because it calls out the false idea that people could actually prepare for something so destructive. 

References:

Duncombe, S., & Lambert, S. (2021). The art of activism: Your all-purpose guide to making the impossible possible. OR Books.

hooks, b. (2000). Understanding patriarchy. Louisville Anarchist Federation.

Ito, K. (n.d.). Burning away [Mixed media: light and honey on canvas]. Artist’s collection.