Bridget has Down Syndrome and is non-verbal, but still expresses herself Vividly
Fitz: Bridget, congratulations on your art. When did you take it up?
BK: I have been drawing since I was little but I started using Posca Pens in Year 12 at St Scholastica's College, Glebe, which I attended with my two sisters. That was when I got really excited about my art.
Fitz: When did you realise you were not just good at it, but seriously talented?
BK: When I finished high school, I kept doing my art because it made me happy. When I was 21, I won the Inner West Blooming Arts prize. I won a mentorship to University of Sydney College of the Arts. I felt happy because people started to call me an artist.
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Fitz: Who are your greatest artistic influences?
BK: I get ideas from the world around me. I like colours and shapes and showing people how I see things.
Fitz: What did your parents and sisters say when you told them your work was to be displayed at Vivid?
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Sydney Morning Herald
09-08-2025
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I survived Hiroshima: The world should turn away from nuclear weapons
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The Age
09-08-2025
- The Age
I survived Hiroshima: The world should turn away from nuclear weapons
Hiroshima survivor Keiko Ogura, 88, will visit Sydney this week to commemorate the 80 th anniversary of the bombing in a special event, Pass the Baton: Commemorating 80 Years Since the End of WWII, presented by the Japan Club of Sydney. She will also be visiting the rehearsal room of The Face of Jizo, a play about the relationship between father and daughter in Hiroshima in the wake of the bomb. Fitz: Ogura-san, thank you for making the time to speak about such a difficult thing. May I ask you what you remember of that terrible day? KO: I was eight years old, just a girl, but that morning and the following days I remember clearly. So because of that, I want to convey what I have experienced. I lived in Hiroshima about one and a half miles from Ground Zero. That morning, my parents were in the house, and I was just outside. Fitz: It was Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8.15 in the morning. KO: All of my classmates went to school already. We didn't have summer vacation, and my classmates went to school, but my father stopped me. He said, 'You shouldn't go to school today.' The previous night over Hiroshima, American airplanes passed. We didn't see them, but we heard the whining. So because of that, my father was worrying there might be something today. Fitz: And then what happened? KO: All of a sudden, there was a flash, a blinding flash, and I couldn't see anything. And just after that, there was a blast – I was blown down by the strong wind. I felt like I was in the tornado or typhoon, and I was beaten on the road, and I became unconscious. And then I opened my eyes. I found that I was in the darkness, I couldn't see anything. I was in the tranquility. I mean, everything was so quiet. I found myself wondering what had happened. But then I opened my eyes and I could gradually see my neighbourhood. Everything was broken and then I couldn't understand why I was on the road by myself. KO: At first, I couldn't understand which way to go, and then I heard somebody crying and realised it was my brother. Then I thought, maybe this is the way to go. And then I returned to my house and my house was broken and damaged. And then roof tiles were scattered around, and I saw my little brother bleeding from his head and crying. And at first, I couldn't understand. What? Why is that? What has happened? We couldn't understand.
The Age
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Major festival news for western Sydney – and that's just the start
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