Join the Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre – and 140,000 peace cranes – in a new contemporary art exhibition exploring the cultural legacy of Hiroshima.
Mark the 75th anniversary of the first atomic bombing in Japan by joining Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre’s member Shoji Masuzawa and his young assistant Magnus Byrne in an origami peace crane making and storytelling workshop suitable for 7 to 75+ year olds.
This show and tell workshop is dedicated to the two women who have inspired Peace Cranes – Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre’s forthcoming exhibition of international contemporary art exploring the cultural legacy of Hiroshima. Hear the story of these inspiring women and their life-affirming act of folding origami paper cranes from the Peace Cranes exhibition curators Iliyana Nedkova and Heather Kiernan.
The first is Sadako Sasaki (1943-1955) – the Hiroshima school girl who still signifies our hopes for peace and nuclear disarmament. The other is Edinburgh Peace & Justice’s own member Atsuko Betchaku (1960-2016) – a teacher and pacifist. In 2015, Atsuko embarked on an international collaborative project of folding 140,000 origami peace cranes to represent the 140,000 people who were killed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and to highlight the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as a way to ensure that this will never happen again.
Make origami peace cranes and become a Peace Cranes exhibition supporter. All you need to join us online is some paper and a flat folding surface. Origami paper is ideal, as it is thin, strong, and folds well, but you can use any paper you have to hand. It just needs to be a perfect square, and should measure at least 5 inches by 5 inches.
This is a free event, but if you are able to donate we are asking supporters to donate £14 or any amount you can afford. We will ensure that you are acknowledged as a supporter of the Peace Cranes exhibition of international contemporary art in 2021 which will also feature an artist’s installation of the 140,000 origami paper peace cranes folded by Atsuko and hundreds of other volunteers like her from over five countries who have contributed to this initiative led by us at Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre since 2015.