NAGOYA--Japan's anti-nuclear movement is harnessing the power of the Internet to reinvent the good old political placard.
NAGOYA--Japan's anti-nuclear movement is harnessing the power of the Internet to reinvent the good old political placard.
A new website established on April 30 by Realiser, a citizens group that promotes independent media, allows supporters of the movement to share posters they have created themselves, rather than just using slogans created by event organizers.
As of Sept. 17, the nonukeart.org site had more than 800 posters online, some created by professional artists but others by rank amateurs. Users can freely download, enlarge and print the posters.
Takenao Misawa, a representative of the group, said the objective was to allow protesters to find the right poster to take along to a demonstration. Designers use a wide range of styles, including cartoons, bare slogans and photography.
Karin Watanabe, a 49-year-old self-employed woman living in Nagoya's Minami Ward, submitted a poster of a handmade stuffed animal saying, “Let's get nature and energy to work together.”
She said in a comment on the website: “I want to do something for eliminating nuclear power generation. I can create a poster on a computer during my work break."
In September, Mothers concerned about nuclear power, a group of young mothers in Gifu and Aichi prefectures, held an exhibition in Gifu city of posters downloaded from the web site.
A member of the group, Yukiko Uchida, 38, said the idea was to make the posters available to people who do not use the Internet.
Posters were on display at Nagoya YMCA in Nagoya’s Naka Ward through Sept. 18, and about 60 posters were shown at Shirakawa Koen park during an anti-nuke demonstration on Sept. 19.
The website can be viewed at (http://nonukeart.org/).