Each of Japan’s nuclear plants have their own mascot characters. Up until the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan even had an amusement park called Atom World with mascots like Plutonium Kun and Denko Chan, with the goal of explaining why nuclear power is good for us. The use of nuclear energy propaganda began in the U.S. as part of Eisenhower’s 1953 Atoms For Peace program. In order to shift negative attitudes away from the dropping of the atomic bomb, this program helped Japan develop a nuclear power industry, thereby promoting the peaceful use of nuclear technology.

While living in Japan and volunteering in the disaster zone left by the 2011 tsunami,  I created a fictional nuclear mascot and photographed the character with references to nuclear history and current concerns in Japan. In the final image, I purchased a digital billboard ad and screened an image for 15 seconds every hour on June 7^th, 2013. This image was shown in Shibuya Crossing, the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world with over one-million people crossing a day. This public art intervention took 6 minutes of commercial advertising and replaced it with an image of the character, raising a question about the role of media and propaganda in man-made disasters.