|
Photo Exhibition of HIibakusha
of the World
◆STATEMENT◆
The twentieth century has brought us immense
progress in technology, while it has also allowed numerous kinds
of weapons of mass destruction to be produced and put to use.
Even after humanity has twice experienced tragic wars that involved
the whole world, the killing of the masses of people still continues,
with the use of ever more advanced weaponry..
Nuclear weapons are themselves the very examples of human folly,
representing mankind's unending pursuit for more powerful means
of destruction. The greatest witnesses to the horrors of mass
destruction are the hibakusha, or victims of the atomic bombings,
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fact became revealed, however,
that there are numerous others whose lives have been severely
affected by radioactive contamination caused by nuclear tests
that have been conducted since the end of World War II in great
numbers. They, too, are the most eloquent witnesses to the gruesome
realities involving the development of nuclear arms.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century,humanity id challenged
to deliver efforts n order to reclaim the tyue human spirit in
the faze of the huge unclear stockpiles in the World.Nuclear weapons
must be adolished.We must not allow nuclear arms to go on harming
living things and destroy the support them.These tasks can only
be fulfilled when people around the world are united in a common
commitment and aharc the mission to bring about the abolition
of nulear arms.
In the hope of leading the efforts
to realize a world without nuclear weapons, we recently joined
together to establish a nonprofit organization (NPO) made up of
free-lance photographers in Japan who are committed as our lifetime
pursuit to recording the realities surrounding the victims of
the development of nuclear weapons. We hope to hold exhibitions
of our photos of the witnesses of nuclear development in many
places both in Japan and abroad. With strong belief in the possibility
of photography as a means of communication beyond cultural and
language barriers, we will continue to hold photo exhibitions
in the hope that many more people will be able to learn of the
reality of nuclear development and think seriously about the responsibility
that all humanity shares: the abolition of nuclear weapons.
|
