The concept piece "hiroshiitake" illustrates the immediate consequences of a nuclear attack in a direct way, using Hiroshima as an example. In addition to addressing the issue of political and scientific culpability in this particular historical context, it also raises more general questions about homo sapiens sapiens' ability to dismiss such profound low points in the history of humankind as harmless and even to glorify them, provided they lie far enough in the past. On opening night and throughout the exhibition, a traditional Japanese shiitake soup made with mushrooms imported from White Russia –– a reference to the most recent "disturbance" at Chernobyl in 1986 –– is prepared and offered to visitors. "hiroshiitake" thus personalizes the question of responsibility for nuclear contamination by posing it in the form of an individual physical experience.

Typographical drawing/installation: The thematic interweavings of Japanese military tragedy and Japanese cuisine are at work in the large-format drawing "hiroshiitake". The basis for the piece is one of the few existing photographs of Hiroshima made immediately following the dropping of the bomb. This event is transformed into a biblical narrative by dissolving the documentary image into an illustration in the style of a medieval manuscript illumination. Popular Japanese shiitake recipes provide the textual basis for the illustration.

In order to create a geographical as well as thematic connection to the exhibition space at the Columbus Art Foundation in Ravensburg, the illustration was displayed "standing on its head", 24 degrees off the vertical –– a formal reference to the historical event that took place on the other side of the world, as well as a symbolic reference to the cultural, historical and moral distance we in the West are able to place between ourselves and the memory of Hiroshima (in contrast to our Western appetite for the Japanese delicacy, the Shiitake mushroom). Angling the image 40 degrees northeast also brought it into alignment with the "Little White House" (Karl-Marx-Strasse 2 in Potsdam-Babelsberg) where on August 3, 1945, American president Harry S. Truman –– who was there enjoying his summer vacation –– gave the order to drop the atomic bomb.

Performance:
For the opening of the exhibition "hiroshiitake", shiitake soup is offered as a Japanese delicacy and as a dish reputed to be among the healthiest in the world. The soup is prepared on site, in the kitchen of the exhibition hall.

The shiitake soup is made using mushrooms imported from the area around Chernobyl, a direct reference to the "disturbance" there in 1986, and thus to the problem of nuclear contamination beyond the context of Hiroshima.

The exhibition "hiroshiitake" enables the visitor to experience directly the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons technology, while at the same time taking issue with our tendency to glorify historical catastrophes after the passage of a "suitable waiting period".
The installation elements pose the abstract question of responsibility for political and scientific errors beyond the context of this specific historical example.