AsiaLENS: Hiroshima Nagasaki

About the Film
Visual artist and filmmaker Shinpei Takeda’s wide-ranging work focuses on memory and history. In his first feature documentary, Takeda sets out on a North American road trip with a former high school friend to collect stories of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Traveling from Vancouver, Canada to the Mexican border in the Spring of 2009, the stories shared in “Hiroshima Nagasaki Download” are transformative and emotional reminders of how strongly past trauma resonates in the present, seventy-five years after these harrowing events. 

Based between Tijuana, Mexico, and Düsseldorf, Germany, Osaka, Japan-born Takeda has followed atomic bomb survivors living in North and South America since 2005.  Through multi-media installations, sound interventions, documentary films, large-scale photography installations, and collaborative community projects in various public contexts, Takeda visualizes and amplifies voices of marginalized communities, which too often go unheard. 

Takeda’s most recent work is “Memory Undertow”, an augmented reality project installed at Nagasaki Hypocenter Park in July / August 2020 that transmitted and visualized survivor stories through the AR App “Ground Zero” and through a performance event on August 9th. Our online discussion with Shinpei Takeda on Tuesday, November 10, 2020, will include a conversation on the multi-disciplinary aspects of creating work centered on issues of trauma, immigration and social justice, and the importance of carrying the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forward. 

Online Resources:
http://www.shinpeitakeda.com/ (Official Website)
http://www.shinpeitakeda.com/my-product/memory-undertow/ (Video of a recent project, Memory Undertow)
www.hiroshima-nagasaki.com (A project with UN)
www.ajaproject.org (A nonprofit founded 20 years ago to work with youth using photography)

This event is generously co-sponsored by the Spurlock Museum and the Asian American Cultural Center.