"On the horizon of the small German village of Neuglobsow, the chimney of the Rheinsberg nuclear power plant rises above the surrounding beech and pine trees. It stretches to the sky, twice the height of the forest beneath it—a solitary concrete monument in a picturesque landscape. Beneath the tower and the trees, there is water: glass-clear and shining blue; cold and immensely deep. Lake Stechlin is a mirror. Named from the old Slavic word for glass, steklo, it reflects the forest, the smokestack, the landscape around it—and other, more global phenomena too." (Jessica Lee)

Links: https://springs-rcc.org/legends-limnology-and-nuclear-power/
https://springs-rcc.org/

Jun Yamana (Tokyo): Representations of the Atomic Bomb as Part of the Culture of Remembrance: On the Role of Art in Relation to Catastrophe, Using the Example of a Hiroshima Prize Winner

"In Hiroshima – triggered by the dropping of the atomic bomb – a unique culture of remembrance has emerged. Against the backdrop of the growing threat of war in today’s world, this culture of remembrance seems to be attracting more and more attention. One indication of this is the number of Japanese and foreign visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which rose to nearly 2 million in the period from April 2023 to March 2024. The culture of remembrance in Hiroshima is characterized by a complex interplay of different elements that affect both communicative and cultural memory. My talk will focus on the role of art in this process. Despite the difficulty of putting the experience of the atomic bombing into words, people have tried to capture it and represent it artistically."

Stichworte: Monumentalität, Form, Zeichen, Index, Remedialisierung, Alfredo Jaar, Atombombendom, Atompilz, Katastrophe, Kunst

Goethe University, Frankfurt

4pm, Room IG 1.414

Link: https://www.memorystudies-frankfurt.com/event/guest-lecture-jun-yamana-on-representations-of-the-atomic-bomb/

Yû Miri, eine bekannte zeitgenössische Autorin mit koreanischen Wurzeln, berichtet im Rahmen des AAWW (Asian American Writers' Workshop) von 3.11 und ihrem Engagement in der von der nuklearen Havarie betroffenen Region.

In ihrer Buchhandlung in Minami-sôma hält sie eine Lesung des Texts "Tokyo Ueno Station".

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09hFgIKYuYA

"In Fukushima, I found a society collapsing under the weight of industrial pollution. But that’s only part of the story. I also found toxic solidarity.

Rather than giving up, Tanizaki and other farmers have taken matters into their own hands, embracing novel practices for living alongside toxic pollution. These practices go far beyond traditional ‘farming’. They involve weaving relationships with scientists, starting independent decontamination experiments, piloting projects to create food security, and developing new ways to monitor a changing environment. Among rice fields, orchards and flower beds, novel modes of social organisation are emerging – new ways of living from a future we will one day all reckon with." (....)

"Complicating the binary between those working with or against contamination, toxic solidarity has been encouraged by the same organisations responsible for the disaster. For example, Japanese state ministries and nuclear-related organisations have increasingly encouraged returnees such as Tanizaki to become responsible for keeping their dose of radiation exposure as low as possible. In this way, safe living conditions become the responsibility of citizens themselves, as tropes of resilience are conveniently deployed by the state, and financial supports for disaster victims are gradually cut off. Those who refuse to participate in these projects have been labelled hikokumin (unpatriotic citizens), who hamper the revitalisation of Japan. What we find in this co-option is an unreflexive celebration of farmers’ resilience – a celebration that serves the status quo and the vested interests of state agencies, corporate polluters and nuclear lobbies. Through this logic, disaster can be mitigated, free of charge, by the victims themselves." (...) (Maxime Polleri, aeon, 15. December 2022)

Maxime POLLERI: "His Ph.D. thesis focused on the governance of radiation hazards after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. His fieldwork took place in urban and rural areas of Japan, predominantly in Fukushima and Tokyo. His research was funded by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Japan Foundation, among others.From 2020 to 2021, Dr. Polleri was a Post-doctoral Researcher at McGill University, as part of the “EPI-AI Project,” a Canadian-UK Artificial Intelligence grant initiative that aims to achieve a step change in automated global epidemic alerting using news media monitoring. In 2021, Dr. Polleri joined the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Social Science at Université Laval. He is also a member of the Graduate School of International Studies." (maximepolleri.com/about)