The After Hiroshima exhibition opened at the Brunei gallery on 11 July as a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb. The exhibition featured contributing artists from Japan and the United Kingdom and a collection of works sent in by open invitation, exploring current visions of nuclear weapons in the 20th and 21st century.

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The exhibition included several origami installations themed around the traditional origami crane, which has become associated with Hiroshima. The foyer to the exhibition featured a 1000-cranes installation made by the artist Barbara Jones. It was made out of white paper printed with a blue image of the small pox cells. Small pox was one of the biological weapons that was meant to pose a threat to the West prior to the invasion of Iraq.

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The main hall featured a hanging display of a couple of thousand cranes sent in for the exhibition as a result of an open request published in British Origami Magazine, BOS mail, origami-l and the After Hiroshima website.

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The exhibit was accompanied by an article on Sadako Sasaki and her story, detailing how the origami crane had become associated with Hiroshima and subsequently peace movements.

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Other origami exhibits included a photos of 1,000 crane garlands at Hiroshima, a video of the Sadako Sasaki story, and a wall installation of origami cranes in test tubes.

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Origami workshops are also planned for 6 August to commemorate the day when the bomb was dropped.

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I visited the exhibition on 22 July, which was particularly poignant as it was just around the corner from the Russell Square bus bombing which took place two weeks previously.

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After London, the exhibition will move to the Mllias Gallery, Southampton Institute, East Park Terrace, Southampton, (telephone 023 8031 9916) where it will be on display 13 January to 25 February 2006.

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For more details see www.afterhiroshima.org or www.soas.ac.uk/gallery

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