Japanese legend
grants a wish after folding 1,000 cranes, and I decided to use origami cranes to represent the number of tests conducted by the United States, since the number <1,054> was so similar. My goal was to fold 1,000 cranes myself, with a wish for world peace, but ultimately, the project far exceeded the goal thanks to the kindness of countless people that volunteered to fold and donate cranes.
It turned out to be a striking visual, and few people I talked to had any idea the US had exploded to many nuclear devices.
When I traveled to Hiroshima, I met with” Hibakusha,” (a Japanese term for the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II). The word literally translates to "bomb-affected-people.” I was gifted so many origami cranes that I had many thousand in the exhibition and had to suspend most of them on strings along the walls.
Although we easily had around 5,000-6,000 cranes, only 1,054 hung from the ceiling, each representing the detonation of one nuclear device.
“On August 6, 1945, two-year old Sadako Sasaki was at home in Hiroshima, Japan when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on her city. Soon after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Imperial Japan surrendered and World War II came to an end, but the impacts of the bomb were just beginning to reveal themselves. Sadako sustained no obvious injuries in the bombing. Ten years later, she began having medical complications. After a diagnosis of leukemia, called “atomic bomb disease” by some in Hiroshima, Sadako was hospitalized.
A Japanese legend says that folding 1,000 origamicranes grants the folder a wish, and Sadako set to work creating her cranes. From her hospital bed Sadako folded 1,300 cranes before her death just months later.”
(National Park Service)
