atomic bomb in the shape of a heart for drawing

Shizumi Shigeto Manale is a dancer, performing artist, choreographer, director, author, and film producer born in Hiroshima and raised in Osaka, Japan. Clearly, the young people at the UN event appreciated hearing the heart rendering stories from the survivors and the positive effects of kindness and reconciliation. The PaPa was instrumental in having the film shown in October 2019 at the United Nations Side Events of the meetings of the First Committee in cooperation with the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs on the occasion of the Youth 4 Disarmament Initiative and Peace Boat landing. The documentary also captures the emotional journey of members of All Souls Unitarian Church to Japan to reunite for the first time the drawings with the surviving artists. To tell the dramatic story, producer Shizumi Manale and the film’s director, Bryan Reichhardt travelled to Japan and were able to identify the artists who, now in their 70s, revealed in their own words how their paintings could have expressed such joy and innocence when they were children.

While 400 children died on that day in the Honkawa Elementary School in Hiroshima the drawings symbolized the ability that children have to overcome devastation. The drawings had been uncovered in a box in 1995 by a church parishioner after 50 years since the Japanese children had sent them in appreciation for the art supplies they received after the war from the church.ĭuring their visit to All Souls Unitarian Church last month with Maryland-based artist Shizumi Manale and Seijyu Kahou, founder of the Pan Asian Association, Henry and Lisa Polgar of the Panamerican-Panafrican Association (the PaPa), easily understood Manale’s passion to bring the drawings to world attention through her documentary film, “Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard.” The beauty and joy of each brightly colored drawing had no resemblance to the horror that the children had just experienced from the bombing. When Shizumi Shigeto Manale was visiting All Souls Unitarian Church in 2006 and saw the 48 colorful drawings made by children who had survived the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, she was driven to share with the world the children’s powerful story of resilience and hope.

Atomic bomb in the shape of a heart for drawing