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Art as Anti-Nuclear Activism: Takeda Shinpei's Hibakusha Voiceprints in Alpha Decay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Takeda Shinpei  and
Megu Itoh
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Abstract

Takeda Shinpei was invited to create an art installation at Centro Nacional de las Artes, located in Mexico City. This chapter is a vivid telling of Takeda's process working on this piece, part of his Alpha Decay series which foregrounds voice vibrations of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings. Takeda details the ways in which he drew from his own memories of adolescence, reckoned with voices of the “hibakusha,” and channeled these complex and haunting intersections through his body into his art. Takeda thus weaves a powerful yet honest and vulnerable narrative that shares reflections on method and ethical praxis.

Keywords

Nuclear radiationmemoryvoiceprintsartHiroshimaNagasaki
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 11 , November 2023 , e1
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2023

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References

Notes

1 [Translator/Editor] Alpha Decay refers to a seven-part multimedia series that includes voice vibrations of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings, installations, film/video, and music. Takeda's work is commonly not static, changing as it travels from one venue to another as he continues to add and edit.

2 Akiko Naono traces the definition of the term “hibakusha,” locating the first uses of the term within surveys of wartime damage and medical research. The term has been translated in popular vocabulary as “atomic bomb survivors” but the meaning continues to evolve. See “The Origins of ‘Hibakusha‘ as a Scientific and Political Classification of the Survivor,” Japanese Studies, 39, no. 3 (2019): 333-334.

3 [Translator/Editor] In the postwar era, there has been considerable controversy regarding the song “Kimigayo,” which was not officially declared Japan's national anthem until 1999. A song, which celebrates the imperial lineage and was used in the wartime era to foster allegiance to the state, was particularly resisted by teachers in the public school system.

4 The word for “serious,” shinken, is made up of two characters that mean “real” and “sword.”