On March 22, 2026, the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum organized a special presentation by Japanese war photographer and journalist Hironobu Kubota (photo) to report on people living in refugee camps in Palestine and Syria on his latest assignment in February. The event was held on the last day of the museum’s exhibition, “The Four Major Print Series of the Spanish Master, Goya,” that features “The Disasters of War” series of antiwar prints created by Francisco Goya from 1810 to 1820.
Over the course of his two-hour presentation, Mr. Kubota drew similarities between the stark prints by Goya and the photographs and video footage he took of refugees who, while barely managing to escape war with their lives lived in squalid conditions, as well as scenes of the horrors, violence and bloodshed he witnessed on battlefields. He said that his work captured the real, unmitigated faces of war that were rarely, if ever, taken up by Japan’s mainstream media.
For 200 participants in the event, it was a sobering reminder of the true value of peace through which they could ponder why wars erupt and why people must take action to sever the vicious cycle of war and violence.
