Yoshiko Shimano - Sunflowers

Sunflowers

The “Sunflowers” speaks about the healing lands which were radiated by natural disasters and nuclear bombs, or destroyed by wars. The sunflowers also speak about healing people’s souls who are victims of the disasters and witnesses in these historical moments.

In 2011, when Japan was hit by a great tsunami and earthquake, the Fukushima Nuclear Plant lost cooling power and started leaking radiation. When I learned that sunflowers can absorb radiation on the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which happened in 1986, I felt that was a very poetic story and made me warm and encouraged. In February of 2022, when I heard that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant in Ukraine was attacked by Russia along with many other beautiful historical cities, I thought of sunflowers again. I learned later that the sunflowers are national flowers of Ukraine, and that made me decide to make a series of extended prints for.

In 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, people believed that it will take fifty years until any plants and trees will grow. After seventy-eight years, Hiroshima has become the largest city in the Chugoku region in Japan. While a land can be purified and developed over years, the victims’ lives and memories stay forever. I hope that the sunflowers will help the victims spiritualize, see a slight hope, and regain the courage to move forward their lives.