Peace Gone Wild

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Hiroshima Day & Shadow Project

Hiroshima, August 6 - 1945

Human shadows were burnt into sidewalks and walls in the first nuclear war.


The Shadow Project – 2006

61 years later, we chalk shadows on the streets of Portland, so that the blinding light of nuclear war is never seen again.



Hiroshima Day marks the anniversary of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945. Over 200,000 people were killed by those two bombs. Since then, nuclear weapons have posed the single greatest threat to the survival of our species.


I'll be attending with my two kids and will return with photographs from the event.


The Administration has plans for increasing U.S. nuclear weapons programs and so we urgently need to remind Oregonians and our lawmakers of the horrific consequences of nuclear weapons. We cannot let the memory of Hiroshima fade and allow our leaders to make this grave mistake again.


The Shadow Project is political art, by the people, for the world. People all over the world will make chalk shadows on the streets of our cities, remembering the human shadows burnt into the streets of Hiroshima by nuclear bombs. We do this the week before Hiroshima Day, August 6th, with the hope of preventing nuclear shadows from ever being cast again.


Come to a Chalking the Sidewalk Session: materials, permits, techniques, and others to chalk with.


August 6 – Japanese-American Plaza – 4:30 pm – NW Couch & Naito. The half hour training will be followed by chalking shadows near the training site.


"The Shadow Project began in 1982 and was organized as an International Shadow Project from Portland in 1985 in 426 cities worldwide. The Cold War may be over, but with the lapse of treaties and nuclear oversight, and research to build new atomic bombs, the threat of nuclear disaster is closer than most people think. Recently our fears have been focused on terrorism, but the old terrors have not gone away." For information on the Shadow Project - www.ShadowProjectHome.org

3 Comments:

  • At 8:42 PM, Blogger boran2 said…

    Congratulations on your blog, Janet! I've got you linked on my blogroll. Now I've got to show the boran2 boy what your daughter is doing.

     
  • At 6:02 AM, Blogger supersoling said…

    Did you notice how so few really noticed the anniversarry of this day? Stunning really. Thanks to you and your family Janet for remembering and for doing it in a public way.

    Peace

     
  • At 10:18 AM, Blogger Janet said…

    Thanks. The memorial was pretty moving. They had a word artist/dancer do this song about how "merciful" and how "it would save lives" to burn so many, to tattoo their shadows into the earth...

    That it was "merciful" to kill so many on a planet in less than it takes a mother to gasp.

    We (the US) have more bombs than any other countries put together...

     

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