The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial Collection, the brainchild of the American Quaker nuclear abolitionist Barbara Reynolds (1915–1990), originated in Japan in the 1960s, as Reynolds strove to eradicate nuclear arms by shining a light on the plight of the A-bomb survivors. Following her relocation to the United States in 1969, after eighteen years abroad, she donated her archive—the likes of which has no parallel outside of Japan—to Wilmington College, Ohio, which led to the establishment of the Peace Resource Center in 1975.
To mark its fiftieth anniversary, I was commissioned by the Peace Resource Center to curate an exhibition, which opened at Wilmington College on August 6, 2025, eighty years to the day following the nuclear holocaust unleashed on Hiroshima. The resulting exhibition,
Memorializing the Hibakusha Experience, subsequently traveled to Oakland University, Michigan, where I teach Visual Representations and the Nuclear Experience since 2011.
Comprised of photographs, photobooks, monographs, magazines, postcards, scrapbooks, textual documents, A-bombed artifacts, hibakusha handicrafts, and other materials of Japanese origin, this singular archive provides an exceptional opportunity to reflect on the legacy of visual culture as it informs our understanding of one of the most consequential geo-political events of the twentieth century.
To underscore how the past continues to shape the present,
Memorializing the Hibakusha Experience also prominently features five contemporary artists, whose artwork retains the urge to memorialize the hibakusha experience.
In this paper presentation, I aim to shed light on the genesis of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial Collection in order to demonstrate its significance and how it will continue to counter the standard narrative that the A-bombing of Japan was morally defensible, because its intent was to save lives by avoiding land invasion.
Claude Baillargeon
Professor of Art History
Oakland University, MI
[email protected]
