Feeling very honoured that an abridged version of the Red Kimono booklet was presented at the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima, November 21 – 23, 2015.

http://sandori2014.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-524.html

This version of the booklet, printed in Japan by Yoko Chase, contains letters, a speech and memoirs by some inspiringly brave mothers who evacuated from Fukushima with their children. Yoko translated most of these texts into English and teaches these mothers English, pro bono.

Yoko and Akiko Morimatsu, author of one of the memoirs, letters and speech and now one of the most active leaders of the antinuclear movement in Japan:

http://sandori2014.blog.fc2.com/img/DSCF7160a.jpg/

http://sandori2014.blog.fc2.com/img/DSCF7159a.jpg/

 

 

 

stunning contemporary kimonos using traditional techniques:

http://www.jotaro.net/static/kimono.html

The evening included the following:

• screening of Rik’s presentation about Fukushima at the 2014 Remember Fukushima public meeting at the House of Commons, London
• Alex Xi Zhang screened ‘Dilemma‘, her documentary about Fukushima
• Nobu, Lis Fields, Alex Xi Zhang and Nobu discussed Fukushima and the Red Kimono art project and answered questions – photos by David X Green
• Ann Garrett read two of her poems about Fukushima and Trident
• William Fontaine performed three sound-based works

poster for the evening:

a Japanese version of the text about the project can be found here

‘Red Kimono: Yvonne’ will be included in the Portrait Salon group exhibition @ The Embassy Tea Gallery, 19th – 22nd November, 2015

Launch event: Thursday 19th November, 2015, 6:30pm

‘Portrait Salon was founded by Carole Evans and James O Jenkins in 2011 as a response to the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. A form of Salon des Refusés – an exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show – it aims to showcase the best of the rejected images from the Taylor Wessing Prize, which is organised annually by the National Portrait Gallery in London. The NPG Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize is one of the most prestigious photography prizes in the world, attracting entrants from professionals and amateurs alike’.

https://www.portraitsalon.co.uk/about/

In February 2016 the Portrait Salon selection will travel to The Reminders Photography Stronghold Gallery in Tokyo where it will be part of a project called ‘I / Land’ in association with Miniclick and photography curator and editor Yumi Goto.

The four posters bear the powerful contents page of the book titled: Fukushima Radiation: Will You Still Say No Crime Was Committed?. This book book contains a selection of 50 witness statements from people who were residing in Fukushima at the time of the triple disaster of March 11, 2011. The people who wrote these statements are among thousands of complainants for the criminal prosecution of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. A selection of the statements can be found on a further 12 posters hung in other parts of the hallway.

Fukushima Radiation: Will You Still Say No Crime Was Committed? is now available in English as an e-book. No need for a Kindle – readable via the Kindle app:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XKIZRX4

‘Head to the  Conway Hall Ethical Society – built in 1929 and housing a large humanist library – for an appropriate combination of passion and restraint. Lis Fields’ photographs of an extended network of artists and activists, all dressed in the same vintage kimonoand made up geisha-style (a fairly committed process which typically takes three hours).  They pose in solidarity with those affected by the radioactive fallout from 2011’s Fukushima nuclear disaster. In a neat play on serialism, people of different races, ages etc initially look similar, but individual characteristics soon burst through. Fields has backed up her concerns through extensive research and has published a booklet of testimonies, all pointing to a failure to acknowledge the full – and potentially worldwide – effects, or to hold anyone meaningfully to account. All without Fields having been to Japan, making this all the more impressive as a lesson in empathy.’

http://paulsartworld.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/choices-from-sept-dec-2015-now-closed_90.html?m=0

Writer and curator Paul Carey-Kent sets out a rolling ten recommended contemporary art shows in London now. He currently writes freelance including for Art Monthly, The Art Newspaper, Frieze, artcritical, Photomonitor, STATE and Border Crossings, and has a quirky weekly online column at FAD Art News – see http://www.fadmagazine.com.

A shot of one corner of the exhibition showing the shelf for the booklets and exhibition guides and, soon, the guest book:

A shot of a pile of the booklets and the exhibition guides on a shelf at the exhibition:

The design for the cover of the booklet titled ‘Letters, memoirs and statements by evacuees from Fukushima and people who still live there’, with memoir author M.K.’s picture of the chopped down radioactive trees, piled up and left near her house in Fukushima on the front and speech, letter and memoir author Akiko Morimatsu and her children. This booklet will be available for visitors to the exhibition to take, free of charge: