Ukrainian Children’s Drawings – Can Cherry Trees Bring Hope to Ukraine?

This exhibition accompanies the Japan-Ukraine Sakura Peace Initiative, which is working to bring Japanese cherry trees to Ukraine as symbols of peace, friendship and reconciliation.

The project was initiated by London-based Japanese journalist and author Naoko Abe, bringing together a growing network of people around the lifelong work of Masatoshi Asari, a 95-year-old cherry-tree creator from Hokkaido. Shaped by his own childhood experience of the Second World War, Asari has spent more than fifty years sending his cherry trees around the world. In spring 2027, his Matsumae cherries are planned to make their journey to Ukraine, continuing his lifelong commitment to connecting people through trees.

The drawings presented here were made by Ukrainian children. Some are now living in London, while others were created by children receiving treatment and rehabilitation in Kyiv. Their works speak in different ways of war and displacement, but also of home, nature, peace and imagined futures.The drawings themselves have travelled between Ukraine, London, Hakodate, Tokyo and back to London, carried by the network of people brought together by the project.

A cherry tree or a drawing cannot end a war. Yet even in wartime, people continue to plant, make, care and connect. These ordinary acts take on particular meaning when so much is being disrupted or destroyed. They sustain relationships across borders and carry something made in the present towards an uncertain future.

Asari has spent a lifetime planting for the future and for other people. The cherry trees now destined for Ukraine are intended to take root and grow there, where the children participating in this project may one day see them blossom. Their drawings invite us to imagine that future with them.

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Japan-Ukraine Sakura Peace Initiative and Sakura Bridge of Hope (UK).

About

JUSPI (Japan-Ukraine Sakura Peace Initiative) is a group of four Japanese volunteers based in Europe working on a project to send cherry trees to the people of Ukraine. Naoko Abe, a London-based Japanese author and journalist, and Ryotaro Sakamoto, deputy head of a Japanese-language school in Warsaw, co-chair the group. The other members are London-based Toshihiko Kitagawa, a Japanese-language teacher at the UK’s Keele University, and Mayumi Miyago, representative of Hokkaido Foods Ltd. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Sakamoto has been sending aid supplies, including cherry trees, to Ukraine.
JUSPI is particularly focused on sending Matsumae Zakura, a group of cherry varieties developed by Masatoshi Asari, a 95-year-old cherry tree creator in Hokkaido. For more than 50 years, Asari has donated cherry trees to countries around the world as symbols of peace. The Ukraine donation will be Asari’s final “peace gift.”

 

The exhibition will open at 6pm on Tuesday 3 November.