THROUGH THE COSMOS ON THE TIP OF A HAIR

Dr. Michael Bianco, Director, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery

March 11th, 2023. For late winter, it feels oddly warm in Japan. Standing on a mountain top in Hokkaido, with Siberia literally just beyond the horizon, I feel strangely more comfortable in a tee-shirt than I do a heavy coat. Listening to a deep bell ringing in the distance, I close my eyes and reflect on how the weather has felt peculiar since my arrival to the country only days before.

I had anticipated Tokyo would be cold and grey based on my previous experiences there. Arriving in the city centre wearing the same summer clothes I had departed Perth in, I was shocked by Tokyo’s West Australian-like temperatures. Exiting the station, I had discovered masses of people hoarding around the first blooms of Japan’s famous cherry trees, all budding nearly a month early. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one being affected by the climate.

Armed with smartphones, the crowds created a sea of blue light that flickered and danced around the trees’ edges – a digital tide lapping at the tips of a biological wonder. Despite the cacophonous culture surrounding them, the citizens of Tokyo had all instinctually stopped to try and capture the natural splendour unfolding before them in the heart of one of the world’s densest urban environments. The delicate blossoms have long served as a metaphor for the precarity of life, teaching us the necessity to appreciate the fleeting qualities of beauty while it is present before us.

As a beekeeper, felt joy as I watched a few honeybees gather bundles of pollen to feed their young – a sign of spring and new life to come. The few bees that were there hummed as they excitedly passed. From blossom to blossom, their raucous pollination broke some of the young buds, causing the delicate petals to drift down to the ground like fresh snow. But the petals did not melt into the warm sidewalk. As I looked through the speckled pink blanket of flowers to the slate below, a circular brass plate emerged with burning light. Embossed with an icon of six circles arranged in cruciform, I immediately recognized the logo embedded in the access lid – Tokyo Electric Power Company. I stared at the TEPCO logo with bewilderment and horror.

I began to recognize a familiar ringing in my ears. Looking up again, the massive Ueno train station came into full view. The hum of the bees was subdued by the roaring buzz of vending machines, noodle shops, automated doors, loudspeaker announcements, and people jamming in and out of train cars like animals being readied for live export. The hive of Tokyo was in full flurry before my eyes, all fuelled by the electric-nectar flowing beneath my feet – all generated and supplied by TEPCO power plants. I turned away from the chaos, my eyes panickily searching for the bees again. Where were they? Why were there so few? It’s not yet spring, so why does it feel like summer’s eve? My mind raced.

I shut my eyes hard and committed the beauty of the dappled afternoon light through the cherry blossoms to memory.

The bell strikes again.

The ring echoes through the valley below. My eyes reopen. Whisps of clouds graze the edges of Mt. Yotei in the distance. The wind howls lightly over the snow. I focus on the sublime beauty of the snow-capped mountain before me and recall the lesson of the cherry blossoms. I can hear trickles of water running beneath the thick snow. It’s clear there will be an unseasonably early thaw to what has been a heavy winter.

The bell strikes again.

I close my eyes and turn my thoughts to remembrance. My heart is filled with unease.

I know not all is right in the world. The bell strikes again.

The TEPCO logo flashes before my mind’s eye. The sun’s rays bite at my face, and the sharp wind prickles my arms, and I can feel a cold hollowness growing within me.

The bell strikes again.

It’s 3/11 – the twelfth anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake, and the melt down of TEPCO’s Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima.

Strike. Strike. Strike.

March 14th, 2023.

I’m standing at the base of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the iconic modernist building designed by Kenzo Tange. Built on cast concrete legs, with windows conjoined by deep ribs, the building gives the impression of a cricket cage floating in space. The first time I saw the building was in Alain Resnais’ classic film Hiroshima Mon Amour. Shot fourteen years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima the film captures the structure’s severe nature in a flattened and lifeless landscape. Now, surrounded by greenery, tourists, and school children, the building stands as a brutalist memorial for one of the greatest atrocities against life on earth.

As I turn to the north, a series of memorials fall into perfect alignment: the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims; the Pond of Peace; and the Flame of Peace all configured perfectly to frame what is now commonly referred to as the A-bomb Dome. Originally designed by Czech architect Jan Letzel in the early 20th century, the domed building once served as a civic centre and public exhibition space. That all changed at 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945, when the Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy,” a 15-kiloton atomic bomb directly above the building. Within a blink of an eye, tens of thousands of people, and the vibrant heart of Hiroshima, were all incinerated instantly. Today the building stands as a reminder of the tremendous destructive capacities we wield as a species, and as a call for world peace and nuclear disarmament.

I turn to my right. There, propped up with wooden crutches, is a Chinese Parasol Tree. Originally located 1.3 kilometres away, the tree had taken the full brunt of the atomic blast, losing all of its branches and leaves, with half of its trunk burnt out completely. Going into fall and winter, the tree appeared to be just another casualty. But in the spring a miracle happened: the tree sprung back to life. Like a phoenix from the ashes, the new buds on the tree offered hope to the survivors of the bombing. In 1973 the tree was transplanted outside the museum, and in the years that have followed, clones of the tree have been distributed around the world as expressions of fraternity and world peace. Life persists.

March 24th, 2023.

The water surrounding my little boat is flat, and the scent of woodchips hangs low in the air. I reach into my bag to find the small, folded ticket I saved from the museum in Hiroshima. Holding the paper square between my fingers, I stare at the woodchip pile in the Bunbury port and wonder if the ticket is made from trees logged from the same forest. Adjacent to the mound, I can see a freighter ship being loaded, its Pimsoll line slowly descending into the surface. As I watch, I notice the way the aluminium hull of the dingy feels both hot and cold against my feet, and I wonder if it too was once ore being loaded in this same harbor. I turn my attention to the grain silos stacked against each other at the port’s edge. Filled with noodle-wheat, my stomach gurgles at the recent memory of steaming bowls of Udon in Tokyo as imagine what’s inside their metallic bellies.

Noongar boodja, extracted as grain, harvested and shipped to Japan, extruded into chewy noodles, boiled with Australian Uranium, digested and incorporated into my American-born body, now floating gently in Koombana Bay.

A pod of dolphins approaches the boat. I kill the motor. They drift and dart weightlessly beneath me for a while, and then stop. Presuming they are bored with my presence, I watch them turn and dive, their dorsal fins breaking the surface of the water in slow repetition as they swim away. One remains behind. Spectral in its approach, the dolphin comes to a gentle stop besides the dinghy, hovering and turning to its side to reveal its pale sleek stomach. It’s close enough to touch without having to stretch, but I refrain. As I look down at its face, I realise the dolphin is looking directly back at me. Eyes locked, caught in its gaze, I can sense that it has no fear. Its comfort is startling. It’s clear as feel its eye analyse me that I am the guest in its home. I am the newcomer. As gently as it had arrived, the dolphin turns again and disappears into the waters below.

The sun is setting again over the Indian Ocean, turning the sea from a pale azure to a mercurial lavender. The hubris of my culture has tried to convince me civilization is as solid as iron, but I have been tempered and humbled by the more-thanhuman world. Today’s looming towers of steel are already the rusty dust of tomorrow’s desert floor.