More Details in Japanese

Comment from Designer

The more you think about it, the harder it is to come up with an antinuclear poster. I thought initially to create something based on my own aesthetic principles, but felt that an abstract representation of my art and design was not appropriate to a poster intended to make a powerful appeal to many people. The idea was to come up with a poster that would appeal for an end to nuclear arms that was steeped in the reality of Hiroshima rather than forming an image on a personal, individual level.
This led me to use illustration and I came up with something that accords with my aesthetic principles, but asked the artist Tamie Okuyama to draw for me due to the difficulties of satisfying established illustrators with the image I had in mind. Okuyama’s illustration provides a faultless representation of my idea: the wing of a bird in flight shown in close-up, its instantaneous destruction in a flash of light even as the pain of that image is confined forever in stillness to be sublimated in pious prayer.

Hiroshima Appeals Poster Campaign

In 1983, the Japan Graphic Designers Association Inc. (JAGDA) and the Hiroshima International Cultural Foundation announced their collaboration on a project focusing on the theme “Hiroshima’s Spirit” and launched a poster campaign with the goal of promoting peace at home and abroad. The first poster, entitled “Burning Butterflies”, was created by Yusaku Kamekura, the president of JAGDA at the time. Designers affiliated with JAGDA produce one poster each year.

Size: B1 (728 x 1,030mm)