Hiroshima Graph : Rabbits abandon their children (ONLY 72 COPIES - SIGNED)
.jpg)
Yoshikatsu Fujii
Hiroshima Graph : Rabbits abandon their children (ONLY 72 COPIES - SIGNED)
Photographs: Yoshikatsu Fujii
Text: Yoshikatsu Fujii
Publisher: Self/ Reminders Project
240 pages
Year: 2017
Comments: Hardcover, 270 x 180 mm. With 4 sewn binding booklets. First edition, 2017. Text in english and in japanese. Design by Yumi Goto. Edition limited to 72 handmade copies, signed and numbered by the artist.
Okunoshima is a small island, only about 4 kilometers wide and a short distance from Tadanoumi in the city of Takehara, Hiroshima Pref. It gained its reputation as “Rabbit Island” for the immense rabbit population which thrived in the warm climate of the straits after they were released into the wild after the war. A national vacation village was also constructed so that tourists from both home and abroad could enjoy the island as a resort destination, and camp and swim in the ocean.
But its quaint exterior belies a deadly truth : Okunoshima is also known as “Poison Gas Island” for the role it played in producing poisonous gases after the World War 2, a legacy left behind in the empty husks of the factories peppering the island. Here, chemical weaponry was manufactured from the second Sino-Japanese War all through World War 2. The laborers who worked here, some 6,700 people in total, suffered the effects of their work long after the war was through, much like the people who experienced the atomic bomb first-hand. Many still struggle with guilt for their complicity in the deaths of countless others.
The school curriculum that harped on peace education to the point of tedium up until this point had never presented me the opportunity to learn of the dark underbelly of the island’s history. Life in Hiroshima showed me only a landscape damaged by the war, where we kept the ambiguous word known only as “peace” close to our hearts in a city known only for surviving the atomic bomb. In contrast, this tiny island in Hiroshima quietly harbored a history of wrongdoing.
It’s important to understand the extent of the damage the island faced, yet to use it as yet another appeal for peace would ring only as a hollow platitude. So what better narrator to the horrors of war but a player in its poisonous legacy; the factories themselves where the gas was produced. Nothing can convey its disasters quite so profoundly, and hopefully my photographs can act as the impetus to their reveal.
However, the relationship between Okunoshima and war goes back even further to the Russo-Japanese war, when it was outfitted with several forts to safeguard the then-military establishment of Kure.
After the war, the Japanese military complex found itself lagging behind other countries in the race to develop poisonous gases, so they had their scientists in Tokyo redouble their efforts, and established Okunoshima as the base of their mass-production operations. At its peak production in 1941, they facility produced more than 1600 tons of chemicals, each named after a different color depending on effect: yellow, brown, red, and green, specifically.
The existence of the island itself was kept strictly confidential, and maps produced for public use in 1938 showed only a void where Okunoshima should have been. Many people came from the other side of the island to work at the factory, but they were sworn not to tell anyone of their work. People who stare at the island locals were accused of being spies, and the train to Kure which ran along the coast would shutter its windows when crossing in sight of the island. In short, there was a very tight leash on any information about the island at all.
In addition to all of this, the factory also used as ammunition depot for American troops during the Korean War, so it has had a long history with warfare.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government has choosing instead to draw a curtain over their negative attributes in this regard. Once they finally succumb to the elements, the relics of war that remain here now will be lost to the ages. There are 2,000 people alive today who were once laborers on the island, and at this point, many of them who worked directly with poison gas are over 90 years old. We’re running out of time to collect their first-hand accounts; however, we owe it to our future generations to tell their stories. As a photographer who hails from Hiroshima, I can only hope that my photos can serve to pass on the truth.
- Yoshikatsu Fujii
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
more books by Yoshikatsu Fujii
-
Red String (ONLY 35 COPIES)
by Yoshikatsu Fujii
sold -
Hiroshima Graph - Everlasting Flow (Ltd edition of 75)
by Yoshikatsu Fujii
Euro 500
more books tagged »hiroshima« | >> see all
-
11.02 Nagasaki
by Shomei Tomatsu
sold -
Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Hiroshima (With yellow leaflet)
by Collective
Euro 900 -
Silent Histories (Only 45 copies)
by Kasuma Obara
sold -
Chizu / The Map (Signed)
by Kikuji Kawada
sold -
Silent Histories (Only 45 copies)
by Kasuma Obara
Euro 700 -
Hiroshima (Signed)
by Ken Domon
sold
more books tagged »reminders project« | >> see all
-
Snowflakes Dog Man (ONLY 69 COPIES - SIGNED)
by Hajime Kimura
sold -
Happn (ONLY 56 COPIES - SIGNED)
by Kenji Chiga
sold -
Hodophylax (ONLY 111 COPIES - SIGNED)
by Michiko Hayashi
sold -
Bird, Night and then (Only 55 copies)
by Kenji Chiga
sold -
Dear Japanese (ONLY 70 COPIES)
by Miyuki Okuyama
sold -
Mišo Bukumirović (Only 91 copies)
by Hajime Kimura
Euro 180
more books tagged »signed « | >> see all
-
Pain (Signed and numbered, edt of 500)
by Toni Amengual
Euro 180 -
TOYS (SIGNED AND NUMBERED, edt of 10)
by Oscar Berling-Pesant
Euro 35 -
Structure pulsion (ONLY 40 COPIES WITH 7 PRINTS)
by Takashi Homma
sold -
Mytho (SIGNED)
by Dilan d'Agata
sold -
Will they sing like raindrops or leave me thirsty (SIGNED WITH...
by Max Pinckers
sold -
Evros (SIGNED AND NUMBERED, edt of 15)
by Bastien Deschamps
Euro 1600
more books tagged »extremely limited« | >> see all
-
Lili Rose Pink Paradise
by PES
sold -
SO IT GOES (ONLY 60 COPIES) SIGNED!
by Miho Kajioka
sold -
BODY MAPS (NUMBERED AND SIGNED)
by Margaret Lansink
sold -
BEFORE SUNSET COMES (Edt of 100)
by Emi Fukuyama
sold -
Le son de l'encre (UNIQUE, numbered and signed)
by Sandrine Marc
Euro 700 -
London 2008 (ONLY 30 COPIES - SIGNED)
by Liam Tickner
sold
more books tagged »yumi goto« | >> see all
-
Tokyo Perspective (ONLY 50 COPIES - SIGNED)
by Kazuya Urakawa
sold -
The Restoration Will (CEIBA EDT)
by Mayumi Suzuki
sold -
The Restoration Will (ONLY 87 COPIES)
by Mayumi Suzuki
sold
more books tagged »japanese« | >> see all
-
Poet Island (signed)
by Atsushi Fujiwara
sold -
Stripper zukan
by Yoshiichi Hara
sold -
Marrakech
by Daido Moriyama
sold -
Shikijyo, Sexual Desire
by Nobuyoshi Araki
sold -
43° degrees North - a pillar of fire on wilderness
by Collective
sold -
Snowflakes Dog Man (Regular edition Signed)
by Hajime Kimura
sold
Books from the Virtual Bookshelf josefchladek.com