The Space Between the Words

A reflection on presence, attention, and what resists explanation

By Magnus C. Storvik

Foreword

This article was written after we returned from Japan, reflecting on the filming of our documentary marking the 80th anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Made in partnership with ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the project brings together parallel conversations with Hibakusha and with high school students in Hiroshima.

The three of us, Sara Hollingshead, Durshun Singh and I, first met during the in-person session of the Hiroshima ICAN Academy in November 2024, and reunited this March at the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in New York. That was when the idea took shape. We wanted to explore what we, as young people, could meaningfully contribute, and to make something honest to how people live with memory and hope.

We hoped for something simple and human, shaped more by listening than by explanation, a way in for those who might feel unsure where to begin.

In the Middle of Beginning

About a week after handing in my final university assignment, I was packing up my flat in Edinburgh. It all felt a bit hurried. No time to take anything in properly, just clear out, repack, and leave. A few days later, I was on a flight to Japan.

In March, on the final day of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Third Meeting of States Parties in New York, we submitted our documentary proposal in person. Funding was confirmed less than four weeks before departure.

I met the others in Tokyo. The three of us had first crossed paths at the Hiroshima ICAN Academy the previous November, and again in New York. From there, we took the Shinkansen together down to Hiroshima. Somewhere along that journey, it stopped feeling like a plan and started to feel like something real.

Maybe that’s part of why it took me so long to write this. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I wasn’t sure where to begin. And ever since 2020, when I read Norwegian Wood during lockdown in the UK, there is a line I’ve never quite forgotten:

‘Letters are just pieces of paper,’ I said. ‘Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.’

Ironically, that’s what I remember best. Not the book, but who I was when I read it. The flat. The way everything seemed slightly out of step.

Time, Seen and Unseen

I spent some time in Nagasaki after we finished filming in Hiroshima. It’s hard to describe, but something about it was less curated, less arranged for the act of remembering. The past was present, but not always pointed to. It didn’t seem to be waiting for understanding. It seemed a place that no longer needed to explain itself.

Being somewhere for a few weeks is very different from being there for a few days. When time stretches out, you start to notice things you wouldn’t otherwise. People on their routines. The same small scenes unfolding again and again. A group of friends chatting in the same spot after work. A delivery bike passing by at almost the same time each day. None of it means much on its own, but it shapes how you start to see.

I started paying attention to how people moved. How they stood, how they waited. You could tell when someone was tired, or listening, or holding something back. Maybe that’s true everywhere. Maybe I just hadn’t slowed down enough to notice it before.

Working Together, Learning Apart

Working closely with others, especially under pressure, brings out the edges of things. People misread each other. Small habits become exaggerated. But it’s also where care shows up. Not always as agreement, but as effort. The willingness to stay in the process, even when it’s unclear, is its own kind of attention. At one point we joked that we were constantly translating one another to one another. It wasn’t far off.

I don’t remember everything we filmed. I remember the air before an interview. The walk home afterwards. Small moments that didn’t need to be named. The tiredness. The kindness.

It’s not about having the right words. It’s about what drew your attention without asking for it.

What I keep returning to isn’t a single scene or quote or answer. It’s the sense that we were allowed to be there. That something generous was extended to us, in ways both deliberate and unspoken. Someone offering directions without being asked. Someone checking in when they didn’t have to. Not the absence of suspicion, exactly, but the presence of care.

When Words Fall Short

Looking back, there were times I thought things had gone well, only to realise later that the words carried meanings I had missed. I often thought I understood more than I did, or wasn’t sure how to bridge what I didn’t know. It reminded me that sincerity and understanding are not the same, and that good intentions, though necessary, are rarely enough on their own.

Some things do not translate easily. Not just language, but tone, rhythm, what seems natural, what passes for polite. Even between people who share the same purpose, there are moments when things land slightly off, when intention and reception do not quite meet.

I noticed this not just between us, but around us: in the small pauses between gestures, the way people waited, the things they left unsaid. It made me think about how we make sense of one another, how much rests on patience, on context, on grace. How often we assume we have been understood, when really we have just been interpreted.

I was told more than once that coming here with such limited Japanese was brave. Sometimes the word seemed generous. Other times, I suspected it meant something closer to foolish. Still, we got by on gestures, patience, and the few shared cues we recognised, a film, a phrase, a song. It reminded me that language is never the whole story, and that even in your own tongue you find yourself explaining, rephrasing, trying again.

We were constantly adjusting: to each other, to the people we met, to the moods of the room. Meaning did not always land where we expected. Somehow, not getting it right the first time brought us nearer to what we really meant.

I did not understand most things being said, and often wished there had been more time to learn. There were moments I seemed clumsy, even rude, for not knowing how to respond, or for letting silence last too long. But I remember the small laughs, the way a room could shift, how someone leaned in, or paused, or chose their words more slowly.

It was not always easy to tell what something meant, but you could often feel when it mattered. A shift in posture, a pause before speaking, the way someone folded a note or reached for their water.

Soon, the days started to fold into each other.

Making and Being Made

The middle weeks blurred a little. Not in a bad way. Just in that way where you stop counting days. When the weather stays the same, your feet always hurt, and the walk to the station becomes instinct. But somewhere in that rhythm, the days began to feel lived, not just counted.

At some point, I stopped just observing and started taking part. I do not remember much in detail, but I remember that time fondly. The specifics have blurred, but the feeling stayed with me. Maybe because I was more present.

Meeting the Hibakusha, as always, asked for more than words. Not in a heavy or solemn way, but in how the space around them changed. People gave room. There was a kind of respect that did not draw attention to itself. No hierarchy. No grand gestures. Just a shared awareness of what it meant to be present with someone who had lived through what they had.

That was different from what I had seen elsewhere. There was no distance created by reverence. Conversations still wandered. People still laughed or made side remarks. But something in the tone shifted, recognition without spectacle.

It influenced how the student conversations unfolded too, especially with those from Hiroshima Jogakuin High School and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Messengers. They brought real insight, but also something else: a way of speaking that held reflection as much as response. You could sense them working through a thought before offering it. They chose their words carefully. Not out of hesitation, but with intention.

Filming Without Extraction

We didn’t want things to feel staged. No formal interviews. No one sitting stiffly in front of a camera. Just conversation, as natural as it could be, with space for silence too, if that’s what came. We brought cameras, guiding questions, and our own hopes about what might unfold. And whether we meant it to or not, that affected things.

Somewhere in our notes, we’d written that our aim was to be present, not extractive. That dignity wasn’t something we could give or capture, only recognise. I still believe that. But it’s easy to mistake good intentions for good practice.

In some settings, the openness we intended to foster freedom instead brought uncertainty. Some participants preferred to be prepared, not to perform, but to think clearly. To weigh what they wanted to share, and why. It wasn’t about control. It was about care. And that made me question whether our search for authenticity risked creating its own kind of distance.

Because when you try too hard to make something real, you can end up focusing on all the wrong things. You doubt the moments that come easily. You wait for something more raw, more honest, as if truth always has to arrive in lowercase.

And maybe sometimes, it does. Yet at others, it simply shows up plainly: in a pause, in the way someone rephrases themselves, in what’s left unsaid.

We didn’t get it right every time. But in a way, that made the work better. When something didn’t land, we adjusted. A question reworded. A camera moved slightly off centre. Things felt real not because we planned them that way, but because we stayed responsive.

And maybe that’s the real difference between making something and forcing it. One listens more than it speaks. One allows the moment to lead, not the outcome.

There’s no perfect way to ask someone to share something meaningful. But if there’s care, time, and patience to let things unfold without pushing, something honest usually comes through.

Familiar Strangers

At the hostels, people tended to stay with those they’d arrived with. A few conversations unfolded, but most of the time things stayed polite, a little separate. Not because of indifference, but ease. Familiarity was a comfort. And without someone to introduce you, it could be hard to find a way in, especially across language.

That’s part of why I don’t see my experience as typical. Knowing people made a subtle but real difference. I didn’t have to cross the same thresholds. I already had a place to start from: people who welcomed me in, who included me without effort. It’s easy to overlook how much that shapes an experience. But it does.

It also made me think about what it means to be valued. Not in any grand or formal sense, but in the small ways we notice each other. A gesture that doesn’t need to be made, but is. The way someone remembers something you said. Or makes room for you without calling attention to it.

Even on the far side of the world, I recognised things I thought were specific to home. The same tendencies. The same needs. The way people wanted to be included, to be seen, to feel like they mattered, even if they didn’t say it out loud. It made me realise we’re maybe not that different after all. The shape of it changes. The setting shifts. But the core stays the same.

Through the Lens

People often assumed I was Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. It wasn’t personal. Just what looked familiar to them, shaped by context and by what they expected to see. Unlike at home, where difference can be marked out quickly, here I could move unnoticed. I blended in more easily. There was a kind of anonymity in that, enough to shift how I saw myself in the crowd.

Carrying a camera changed how I paid attention. Not just to what stood out, but to everything in between. A turn of the head, a gesture half-made, the way someone stood when they thought no one was watching. It pulled me closer to the details I might otherwise have passed by. It made the everyday feel more alive.

But it also created distance. The urge to capture something at its most ‘real’ could pull me out of it. I found myself scanning for moments rather than resting in them. I caught myself watching through the lens, even when it wasn’t raised.

That tension ran through the project. We wanted to honour presence without turning it into performance. But filming is never neutral. Even with care, it changes the moment. And the ethical weight doesn’t end with the recording. It continues, in how the story is shaped, what is shown, and what is left unseen.

Some things don’t explain themselves. A glance that lingers. A pause before someone answers. The way a room settles just before someone speaks.

Being there didn’t make those moments clearer. But it made me pay more attention. We moved through language and unfamiliarity, guided by forms of care we didn’t always recognise at first. And in doing so, we noticed more than we could ever fully understand.

Not everything needs to be captured. Not everything asks to be. What matters isn’t always what’s said, or even remembered. Sometimes it’s just the feeling that you were there, and that being there mattered.

The details may fade with time, but the sense of having been there, of sharing even a small part of another person’s world, endures.

Final Personal Note

Returning to Edinburgh this October to chair the roundtable on Scottish and Irish Perspectives in Nuclear Disarmament carried the sense of standing on familiar ground for the last time, not in sorrow, but in quiet harmony among familiar faces and new ones, with the feeling that, for a moment, all was well.

My thanks to Gari, whose belief in me and encouragement shaped much of what followed, and to Daniel, whose faith and humour helped us through, even as he steps into his own next chapter. More than a shift between places or titles, it became a turning toward myself, and the kind of attention I hope to keep. For all its pressures, I will always be grateful for the time I spent with you.

And to Sara and Durshun, for the laughter, the patience, and for keeping things just the right side of chaos. I would not have done it with anyone else. As I step back from UN House Scotland to finish the documentary, and, as a friend said, ‘let some new blood in’, I will do my best to make it honest to everyone who gave their time to it.

A short trailer is available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3pXGyTZpq0) and occasional updates on Instagram at @icantowecan.