Exhibition showing lasting impact of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings comes to UK for the first time

An exhibition documenting the lasting impact of the atomic bomb dropping on Nagasaki is coming to the UK for the first time.

The University of Stirling will host Remembered: 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from October 6 to November 14, 2025.

The free public exhibition marks 80 years since atomic bombs instantaneously reduced the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to ruin.

The first bomb was detonated over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the second over Nagasaki on August 9.  By the end of that year the bombings had taken more than 200,000 lives, with survivors suffering devastating after-effects of radiation. 

Scotland is the 15th country to host the showcase, which was created by The Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims.

The Hall was established under Japan’s Atomic Bomb Survivors’ Support Law, enacted in 1995, with the purpose of conveying the damage done by the bombings, to inform future generations, and to work towards a genuine lasting peace in a nuclear weapon free world.

Incredible honour

Two University of Stirling students will act as tour guides for the exhibition, which includes photography and historical information panels. They and Dr Phia Steyn, Lecturer in History in the University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, attended a peace learning programme to Nagasaki in July, where they heard testimony from atomic bomb survivors and attended lectures and tours in the city.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of public events, to be announced in the coming weeks.

Professor Neville Wylie, Deputy Principal (Internationalisation) at the University of Stirling and an expert in war studies, said: “It is an incredible honour to be the first UK venue to host this powerful and thought-provoking exhibition, particularly as the world marks 80 years since the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings. These events were a watershed moment in the global history of conflict, and this exhibition is an important opportunity to reflect on both the impacts of war, and the importance of peace in an increasingly turbulent world.”

Sarah Bromage, Head of University of Stirling Collections, said: “The exhibition will be on display in Campus Central, our main thoroughfare and gathering space for students and staff, which is also open to the public. We hope visitors will come away with a fuller understanding of the bombings, their consequences, and why this piece of history should not repeat itself.”

A story that must be told

Mike Vandergoot, one of the University of Stirling students who will be a tour guide, said: “People should visit the exhibition because it is a difficult but necessary story to hear. Viewing an exhibition with such a tragic story will make people realise that peace is humanity’s way forward. It is a story that young people especially need to understand so they can be inspired to promote peace in the future.

“An 83-year-old atomic bomb survivor I met while in Nagasaki put it this way, ‘Let Nagasaki be the last place destroyed by nuclear weapons during a conflict.’"

Remembered: 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki runs from October 6 to November 14, 2025 at Campus Central, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA.