I spent two weeks in August in Japan; ten days in Hiroshima as part of an art exhibit at a space called Gallery G, and then a few days in Tokyo. The art exhibit was a collaborative show between myself, Japanese artist Toshie Takeuchi, and Congolese artist Sixte Kakinda, and included our mutual body of work addressing the history of the use of Congolese uranium from the ShInkolobwe mine in the Manhattan Project.

As part of the exhibit Toshie and I (Sixte was unable to attend) gave a couple of artist talks; one at the gallery and another at the University of Hiroshima. We also gave a workshop where we invited the audience to take part in printing the blocks from one of my pieces in the show- a linocut fabric panel and a suit of clothes made from the same fabric. The imagery of the pattern depicts an atomic explosion and a mine, along with a stylized representation of the material dug from that mine. The show is about labor; the labor of the Congolese mineworkers who dug up the stones that brought the sun down to earth over the city of HIroshima on August 6th 1945, and the labor of the scientists and engineers that ventured into the heart of the uranium atom to find the seed of power that would enthrone American Empire. Inviting the audience to participate in the work of making and remaking works from the show connects the circle of work involved in the exhibit- with its ongoing aim to bring the missing parts of the story into the light.

Over ten days in Hiroshima, I also attended the nightly assembly put on by the Hiroshima Palestine vigil, a group of organizers who rally every day at the site of the A-Bomb dome, the last undemolished relic of what the city looked like after its atomic destruction. The vigil brings the ongoing genocide in Gaza into the stifling official commemorations of the bombing, insisting that the destruction of Gaza be linked to the destruction of Hiroshima- the same power perpetrating a similar disaster towards a similar goal. I also visited some of the trees that survived the blast- a powerful experience.

I returned to Tokyo for a few days before returning to the US, and was honored to have the opportunity to present a workshop at the legendary Irregular Rhythm Asylum space, a long-standing political art and information center that has been a core site of East Asian radicalism for decades. Founder Keisuke Narita has recently been experiencing some serious health issues and it was a sad thing to host the event without him, but the artist, organizers and community of the A3B print collective came out to foot-print another panel of the mine-bomb fabric, to learn about the missing history of Congolese labor, and to imagine how we could collaborate further in the future.