Chihiro Iwasaki, Girl in Pink Sweater, Boy in Light Blue Sweater, from Tonari ni Kita Ko (Will You Be My Friend?), Shiko-sha, 1970.

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Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s Passing: To All ChildrenWe Are All Friend

“Telling myself, ‘We’re all friends,’ I look for the nostalgic, tender home of the human soul, which can be found in picture books.” These words, which Chihiro Iwasaki wrote, reflect how she approached the process of making picture books. Her picture books may contain the secret to creating peace. By seeking peace through Chihiro’s illustrations and words, we may be able to discover many answers. In this exhibition, which incorporates the concept of inclusive design, we use Chihiro’s illustrations as a starting point as we strive to find hints for how all people, from children to adults, can respect one another and build peace together.

Exhibition Cooperation: Takayuki Shiose, (Associate Professor, System engineering, Inclusive design, Kyoto University)

Professor Shiose continues to explore the design of inquiries that attract diverse people to learn deeply, including supervising the renewal of one of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation’s permanent exhibitions, Nanairo Quest—The Stories of the Future of Living with Robots, and the renewal of the Tokushima Prefectural Museum from the perspective of inclusive design.

If you were to think about the “opposite words of peace,” what words would come to mind? If you weren’t to use words such as “war” or “conflict,” what words would you use to describe the concept? For Chihiro Iwasaki, not many of her works directly dealt with war, a theme that must have been heartbreaking for her, but rather, she simply continued to depict children.
“Children, with their innocent eyes and lips and hearts, are all the same around the world.” This viewpoint, unique to Chihiro, who created many children’s picture books, is the basis for thinking about peace in this exhibition. When Chihiro said, “At those times in your life when you feel sad or hopeless, please recall the gentle world of picture books,” I believe that her voice will give us the strength to face peace.