Tree sapling from atomic bombing of Nagasaki planted on museum grounds

On May 14, the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum held a special tree-planting ceremony on its grounds, an occasion made particularly meaningful as the persimmon kaki tree sapling came from a mother tree that survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945.

Held under the auspices of the nonprofit “Revive Time: Kaki Tree Project,” the ceremony was attended by Masayuki Ebinuma, the arborist who in 1994 treated the then-fragile bombed tree back to health and succeeded in producing seedlings; and artist Tatsuo Miyajima, who originally displayed its saplings in an art exhibition appealing for peace and was later instrumental in the project’s founding in 1996. In addition, students from the Toyo Elementary School in Hachioji City and other children from the museum’s neighborhood took part in the event. Later that day, Faculty of Fine Arts Dean Katsuhiko Hibino of the Tokyo University of the Arts joined Messrs. Ebinuma and Miyajima in a panel discussion.

Given its founding commitment to peace and the SDGs, the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum asked to take part in the project, which has gone global with some 30,000 children planting the kaki tree saplings at more than 312 schools in both Japan and 26 other countries from 1996 to 2019.