Bunkers, runways, guns and shells all signify violent events in the Pacific during World War II. An expert on managing war relics from this period, Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic Associate Professor Dirk Spennemann has used his photographic talents to show such relics during an exhibition at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. The exhibition, to be opened this Saturday 3 December, shows relics in various locations, from Australia to the cold Aleutian Islands in the northern Pacific and tropical Saipan in the western Pacific Ocean. “The Japanese invasion after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the Allied responses which ended when the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945, have shaped the physical and psychological landscape of the region. Many sites and memorials in the Pacific are evocative reminders of a violent period, which are shown in my personal interpretation through the distorted lens of art photography,” Professor Spennemann said. The exhibition, Pacific Reminders, commemorates the sacrifices on all sides of the conflict, including the military and the civilians unwillingly caught up in the events. The exhibition closes on Sunday 15 January 2012.