AN4AA Talks 2026 | Emily Wakeling | The Legacy of the Hiroshima Panels in Contemporary Japanese Art

This talk will be held online as part of the Australasian Network for Asian Art program in 2026 - a link for online access will be provided after registering your attendance

Toshi and Iri Maruki’s paintings depicting the aftermath of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, known as the Hiroshima Panels, are painted from the perspective of victims. In the artist-couple’s extensive touring of the paintings over multiple decades and countries the works became a powerful tool of communication about nuclear peace. As the artists toured the Panels to more and more countries, including those of the former Japanese empire, the artworks became more critical of Japan’s role in the war. Today, their namesake museum in Saitama, Japan continues to convey the artists’ anti-nuclear and anti-war message through the Panels’ permanent display as well as through ongoing exhibitions and public programming that supports the Marukis' legacy. This talk will present several examples of contemporary Japanese artists making art today, whose practices are informed by and align with the Marukis’ artistic and political legacy.

Emily Wakeling is a curator and art writer specialising in Japanese, Asian and Australian contemporary art. She is Curator at the Art Gallery of Ballarat and was part of QAGOMA’s Asian and Pacific curatorium for the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. Emily is a long-serving freelance writer who has contributed to Artforum, ArtAsiaPacific, Art Review Asia and Art Monthly Australia. She recently published 'Compassionate Grounds: Contemporary Artists’ Responses to the Ongoing Recovery of Tōhoku,' for Handbook of Disaster Studies in Japan (Amsterdam 2025).

Image: Arai Takashi, The Atomic Bomb Dome, Hiroshima, from the series 'Exposed in a Hundred Suns’, 2014, daguerreotype.

The Australasian Network for Asian Art (an4aa) is a group of researchers undertaking research in the field of Asian art and visual culture, working from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. It consists of academics, curators, and artists, including postgraduates, researching Asian art. The Network and its affiliated listserv serve as a platform to share research, promote events, exhibitions and opportunities, foster a scholarly community, cultivate interest, and act as a vehicle for advocacy.