HISTORICAL MUSEUM News:
Los Alamos Historical Museum staff is busy making final preparations for a March 24 trip to Japan to increase cultural understanding between the communities of Los Alamos, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“Museums are in a unique position to facilitate discussion of difficult subject matter in non-threatening ways,” said Los Alamos Historical Museum Director Judith Stauber. While New Mexico and Japan share a history connected by world-changing events, on a societal level, cultural controversy still exists. Museum-to-museum relationship building can help overcome that, she said.
Funded in part by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the visits will spark exchanges between museum communities about a shared history that dates back 70 years. Bombs built in Los Alamos destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As Stauber point out, “Our global histories are inexorably linked, yet our cultures could not be more separate. In our respective museums, one story ends where another begins. Yet, there is not enough mutual understanding.”
Stauber will travel with two Los Alamos natives, Museum Registrar Stephanie Yeamans and Intern Kallie Funk, a Los Alamos High School student,to Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to visit Japanese museums and historic sites. They will meet with museum directors, curators, atomic bomb survivors and professorsat the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum with the goal of developing dialogue.
Museum staff also will visit Kyoto teacher and resident Monica Bethe (daughter of Manhattan Project physicist Hans Bethe and his wife Rose) and share exhibit plans in development for the new Harold Agnew Cold War Gallery in the Hans Bethe House on Bathtub Row in Los Alamos.
Travel to Japan will kick off a long-term initiative to explore multiple perspectives on the atomic bomb. Outcomes includecultural exchange programs, a traveling exhibit, a filmseries, speakers and publications to demonstrate learning through partnership about the history and cultural legacy of the atomic bomb.
“Museums are unique spaces to communicate the complexity of peoples and histories, bridge differences and inspire social change,” Stauber says. “Los Alamos Historical Museum’sJapan initiative emphasizes multiple perspectives and features new partnerships with local organizations including the New Mexico Japanese Citizen’s League and Santa Fe Jin. Community partnerships are essential for the museum to successfully create new programs and opportunities for visitor engagement.”
The travelers will keep the community updated about their meetings and visits through the Los Alamos Historical Museum Facebook page and Twitter feed as well as regular updates to local media.
