This year, we mark 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the Asia-Pacific War. To honour this milestone, we are launching a trilogy of public peace events at the University of Sydney this November 10 - 16, centred on remembrance, reconciliation, and cross-cultural understanding.
The events include the modern Noh performance, premiere to Australia, Holy Mother of Nagasaki, a peace and reconciliation symposium (accessible online and in person), and a week-long public-engagement focused program of inter-generational talks on Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the wartime injustice, public readings of atomic bomb poetry and children's picture books, and an origami workshop for children.
Following in the steps of our predecessors, our events will explore how peace is built, not only through history, but through people’s stories, art, and dialogue.
Our Events at a Glance
- Premiere to Australia, A Modern Noh Play - Holy Mother of Nagasaki
Tuesday, 11 November 2025, 6-8 PM
York Theatre, Seymour Centre, USYD
A groundbreaking performance by the Tessen-kai Kanze Noh group from Japan led by Kanji Shimizu - an ancient art form revived to find out the pain stemming from the atomic bombing and focused on human resilience through powerful, minimalist presentation with the Gregorian Chant by the University of Sydney Graduate Choir.
Holy Mother of Nagasaki, Paris, 2021
- One-Day Symposium online and in-person
'Intergenerational Impact of the Asia Pacific War'
Wednesday, 12 November 2025
Auditorium, Chau Chak Wing Museum, USYD
Featuring international speakers including including hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) descendants, peace activists, and scholars sharing stories of trauma, hope, and long journeys towards reconciliation - from Hiroshima to Sandakan, Borneo.
Featured Speakers (Symposium and workshops)
- Ryoko Nakayama (Tokyo): Hibaku sansei and granddaughter of the poet Sachiko Hayashi, known for her classic poem Sky over Hiroshima.
- John Braithwaite, Emeritus Professor at ANU on War, Crime, and Regulation.
- Tilman Ruff (Melbourne): Co-founder, ICAN, Australia
- Dimity Hawkins (Melbourne): Co-founder, ICAN, Australia
- Yoshio Baba (Japan): Relative of Sadaoki Furui, the grandson of Lieutenant General Masao Baba, commander of the Sandakan Death Marches.
- Richard Moham (Canberra): Son of one of only 6 Australian survivors of the Sandakan marches
- Cynthia Ong (Sabah, Malaysia): Environmental activisit and descendant of a family murdered by the imperial Japanese army.
- Allan Marett (Adelaide): Emeritus Professor of musicology, USYD, playwright of Oppenheimer, the English-language Noh play to be performed in Tokyo in August 2025.
- Tomoko Aoyama (Brisbane): Honorary Associate Professor of Japanese literature, UQ, on a panel of 'Whereabout are the once-militarist girls now?'.
- Barbara Hartley (Brisbane): Honorary Senior Lecturer of Japanese poetry, UQ /UTAS, on a panel of 'Whereabout are the once-militarist girls now?'.
Useful links to get to know the people above:
- A Week of Public Programs
Monday 10 - Sunday 16 November 2025
Chau Chak Wing Museum
Including public reading of children's picture book on peace, origami workshops, displays of the 1951 edition of Sankichi Toge's Atomic Bomb Poems, photographs of a journey towards a joint memorial on Sandakan, and archival moving images - such as Noritake Fukami's Firestorm Over Nagasaki (1946) and the rare Hanaoka Monogatari woodcut print series on Chinese-Japanese reconciliation (1951).
- Tokiko Tsuchiya (Hiroshima): Actress, peace activist, public reading specialist, the representative of the Society for the Preservation of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Literature.
This painting drawn by Gorô Shikoku depicted the outdoor event of the public-reading of children's picture book, The Angry Jizô, as part of the anti-nuclear weapons action in Hiroshima, 1982. Courtesy by Hikaru Shikoku.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Peace isn't inherited. It's nurtured. Today, as global tensions and nuclear threats rise once more, the lessons of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and other wartime atrocities matter more than ever. These events help us remember the cost of violence - and how forgiveness and understanding can grow even from devastation.
At the heart of our project is a remarkable 80-year reconciliation journey: descendants of victims and perpetrators of the Sandakan Death Marches coming together in remembrance and peace. Their joint memorial in 2023 is a testament to courage and healing across borders and generations.
WHAT WE NEED & WHERE THE FUNDS GO
While we've gratefully received $16,000 from the Chancellor's Committee at the University of Sydney, our total budget is around $85,000.
We are seeking $30,000 in community support to help close the gap. These funds will help cover:
- International travel for 14 Kanze Tessen-kai Noh performers from Japan and their two nights accommodation.
- Flights and two nights accommodation for 4 international speakers at the symposium and workshops. (3 from Japan and 1 from Indonesia).
- Support for 5 interstate guest speakers.
- Venue hire costs.
- Support for 15-20 Gregorian Chant singers.
- Event production costs, technical staffing, interpretation services.
- Support for volunteers with meals and refreshments.
We have submitted a competitive grant application to the Australian Government for an additional $35,000 and will cover any shortfall through ticket sales from the Noh performance.
Transparency & Accountability
The organizing committee members (Yasuko Claremont, Mats Karlsson, Roman Rosenbaum and Allan Marett) are all the University of Sydney colleagues. We are working voluntarily with no financial compensation whatsoever. We are passionate about bringing these events into fruition.
We are committed to ensure that all funds raised here will be used directly for this campaign.
About the Lead Organizer
My name is Yasuko Claremont, Honorary Senior Lecturer in the department of Japanese Studies at the University of Sydney, specializing in literature, poetry, aesthetics and socio-cultural studies, at the University of Sydney. I taught postwar Japanese literature and poetry in my academic career. To do it better, I needed knowledge of Japan's wartime history. The works of Ôe Kenzaburô led me on a long mission to develop a deeper understanding of the socio-cultural aspects of Japan as it was and as it stands now.
Since 2011, when the Great East Japan Earthquake hit Japan, my colleagues and I have been working on what the disaster meant to us, especially the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power plant.
We organized international conferences in 2015 with the new English Noh Oppenheimer - it will be performed again in Tokyo in August 2025 - and the display at the Tin Sheds Gallery in 2022.
https://www.sydney.edu.au/architecture/about/tin-sheds-gallery/past-ehibition/art-and-activisim-in-the-nuclear-age.html
We have also published on peace and reconciliation:
The Asia Pacific War: Impact, Legacy, and Reconciliation, Yasuko Claremont, Routledge, 2024
Art and Activism in the Nuclear Age, eds Roman Rosenbaum and Yasuko Claremont, Routledge, 2023
Civil Society and Postwar Pacific Basin Reconciliation: Wounds, Scars, and Healing, ed. Yasuko Claremont, Routledge, 2018.
Citizen Power: Postwar Reconciliation, Yasuko Claremont, bi-lingual in English and Japanese, the Oriental Society of Australia, distributed by the Sydney University Press, 2017.
'Young Poeets Under the Shadow of War: Yu Dong-ju and Tachihara Michizô' in History Wars' and Reconciliation in Japan and Korea: The Roles of Historians, Artists and Activists, ed. Michel Lewis, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Ishibumi: A memorial to the atomic annihilation of 321 students of Hiroshima Second Middle School, transl Yasuko Claremont and Roman Rosenbaum, Poplar Press, Tokyo, 2016.
Legacies of the Asia-Pacific War: The Yakeato generation, ed. Roman Rosenbaum and Yasuko Claremont, Routledge, 2011.
The Novels of Ôe Kenzaburô, Routledge, 2009.
This campaign is about more than remembrance. It's about action. Dialogue. Courage. No matter how small our steps are towards peace and reconciliation we are achieving to reach our goals in doing just that. By contributing, you help make this vision a reality.
Please join us in amplifying the voices of resilience and reconciliation in 2025. Let's learn from the past - and shape a more peaceful tomorrow together.
THANK YOU.
Organizer
Yasuko Claremont
Organizer
Putney, NSW