The Peace Resource Center will observe the 50th anniversary of its founding at Wilmington College while recognizing five decades devoted to nuclear abolition through archival preservation, scholarship, awareness, activism and art. Starting later this summer, special programming, titled “Witnessing the Atomic Past: 50 Years of History, Memory and Art,” will highlight this significant milestone.
The Peace Resource Center is the only academic center and archives in the United States wholly dedicated to the human experience of nuclear war as informed by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
The observance opens with a vigil titled “80 Years After: Hibakusha Call Us to Remember” on Aug. 6, marking the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. From 1 to 5 p.m., participants in the vigil can also join the Peace Masks Project and related disarmament projects led by Quaker artist Todd Drake. Participants can also view the “Memorializing the hibakusha” exhibition, which will open that day in the Meriam R. Hare Quaker Heritage Center Gallery and run through Dec. 5.
A staged reading of the play, “Atomic Bill and the Payment Due,” will be held on Sept. 9, followed on Sept. 29 and 30 with the Westheimer Peace Symposium programming under the theme, “Practicing Art, Practicing Abolition.” Also, on Sept. 30, a live performance of the radio broadcast play, “Borrowed Landscape,” will be staged, all against a backdrop of a professional conference titled “Archives as Witness: Preserving History, Memory and Art.”
The 12-hour vigil on Aug. 6, the 80th commemoration of the atomic bombings, will be held from 8:15 a.m. to 8:15 p.m. in the Quaker Heritage Center and Harcum Art galleries in Boyd Cultural Arts Center. It will feature a communal reading by some 80 readers throughout the day of hibakusha (atomic bombing sufferer) testimonials curated from the Peace Resource Center Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives. Visitors can quietly come and go for any amount of time throughout the duration of the vigil.
The integration Peace Masks Project is planned from 1 to 5 p.m., in Boyd Cultural Arts Center. Peace Mask founders Myong Hee Kim and Kya Kim will join the Peace Resource Center to collaborate with participants to create unique peace masks on traditional handmade washi papers made in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, Japan. “The collective masks serve as a reminder that the fate of humanity depends on allowing for and appreciating diversity while striving towards more meaningful cooperation,” said PRC Director Dr. Tanya Maus.
The Quaker Heritage Center exhibit, “Memorializing the Hibakusha Experience, will be available for viewing in the QHC Gallery during activities on Aug. 6, but its formal opening reception will be held on Aug. 8, at 6 p.m., with music and refreshments. The major commemorative exhibition, curated by Dr. Claude Baillargeon, professor of art history, Oakland University, is devoted to the aftermath of the atomic bombings and is drawn from the original Hiroshima and Nagasaki Collection of the Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives. The collection was assembled in the 1960s by Quaker nuclear abolitionist Barbara Reynolds (1915-1990), then a resident of Hiroshima, who dedicated herself to nuclear abolition by shining a light on the plight of the survivors known as hibakusha. The exhibition, which will bring together rare Japanese photographs, photobooks and artifacts, will also include works by contemporary artists committed to nuclear abolition. Normal gallery hours are weekdays, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by special appointment arranged by Maus.
A world premiere, staged reading of Atomic Bill and the Payment Due will be held on Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Heiland Theatre. WC’s Theater Department will present a reading of the original play, Atomic Bill and the Payment Due, by Libbe HaLevy (of the podcast Nuclear Hotseat). Atomic Bill is an Oppenheimer-adjacent, true story about media manipulation at the dawn of the Atomic Age and the New York Times reporter who sold his soul to get the story.
The commemoration continues on Sept. 29 and 30 with the 35th annual Westheimer Peace Symposium under the theme, “Practicing Art, Practicing Abolition.” Focusing on nuclear abolition and the arts, this will be a two-day, hands-on, experiential symposium facilitated by artists to create awareness about the need to eliminate nuclear weapons as a means to achieving local, national and global justice and peace. The symposium will culminate with “Borrowed Landscape” on Sept. 30, at 7 p.m., at the Murphy Theatre in downtown Wilmington. Composed by London-based composer Dai Fujikura and performed by actors and musicians from Cincinnati's concertnova collective, “Borrowed Landscape" is a radio play that “beautifully tells stories” about string instruments like a Hiroshima piano, a double bass from Poland and a surviving Stradivarius violin in Budapest, according to Maus. “The tales weave together our connection to music, history and how fragile life can be.”
Occurring concurrently will be an academic conference at the College titled “Archives as Witness: Preserving History, Memory, and Art at the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College” on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. The conference will highlight the multi-disciplinary historical materials, artistic creativity and scholarship from the extraordinary Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives that can be used as resources for imagining a world in which nuclear and military violence are no longer viewed as solutions for resolving global conflict.