“When the A-bomb erupted above Hiroshima, people jumped into the river to escape the fires. One after another, they plunged in at full tilt. Soon the river flowed with swollen bodies, their skin and clothes tattered.”
Client: Hiroshima’s Motomachi High School
Project Description: Translate Japanese commentary by artists of A-bomb drawings, and the survivors whose stories they depict, into English.
A Quote
“When the A-bomb erupted above Hiroshima, people jumped into the river to escape the fires. One after another, they plunged in at full tilt. Soon the river flowed with swollen bodies, their skin and clothes tattered.”
The Inside Scoop
Motomachi High School’s A-bomb Drawing Project is one of the most exciting efforts to preserve the legacy of A-bomb survivors.
Started in 2007, the project pairs senior art students with A-bomb survivors. The survivors share memories of the atomic bombing of August 6th, 1945, and the students render it into oil paintings. To ensure maximum accuracy, the survivor provides feedback during planning and sketching. This incredible process creates three invaluable things — the preservation of an A-bomb testimony, a shared memory between an A-bomb survivor and a young student, and a work of art.
Frankly, the concept is breathtaking. And due to the skill and dedication of the young artists at Motomachi HS, the paintings are too.
Afterward, the paintings are donated to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Survivors also use the paintings (or reproductions thereof) when giving their testimonies. Recently, Motomachi HS has been branching out into picture books for children, using watercolor to soften the A-bomb imagery.
Motomachi HS hosts annual galleries of the paintings produced under the A-bomb Drawing Program. They also periodically publish art books in English and Japanese.
My job was to edit text rendered from Japanese into English by various Japanese translators. Everyone did a great job, but due to the huge gap between Japanese and English, in all cases I resorted to the original text to maintain accuracy and provide missing details.
In the end I translated descriptions and commentary by the artists and A-bomb survivors for around a dozen paintings.
My Favorite Part
Viewing stunning works of art and helping to make more A-bomb testimonies accessible in English.
