Artist Statement

Lately, I have developed a deep interest in the history of Japanese immigrants in Australia. It is a history that remains little known to the general public—often forgotten, or at risk of being lost altogether. The global research project Past Wrongs, Future Choices focuses on the history of Japanese civilian internment in Australia during the Second World War.

In the late 19th century, many Japanese migrated to Australia in search of work and a better life. They worked as pearl divers, farmers, shopkeepers, launderers, restaurateurs, innkeepers, and photographers. These immigrants crossed the ocean to support their families and seek new opportunities. Many came from the prefectures of Wakayama, Kagoshima, Ehime, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Before 1901, some obtained naturalisation and became Australian (British subject) citizens. When I think about the emotions they must have felt as they left Japan—hope, anticipation, anxiety, and fear—and the challenges they faced adapting to a new language, culture, and environment, I feel a deep sense of empathy. Although I live in a different era, as a fellow Japanese person who has also crossed the same ocean, I strongly identify with their experiences.

In 1941, following the outbreak of the Second World War in the Pacific, Japanese residents in Australia were classified as enemy aliens. They were arrested and forcibly interned in camps during the war. A total of 1,141 Japanese people were interned, including naturalised citizens, those married to Japanese nationals, women, and children.

Their experiences—including forced removal, relocation, life in internment camps, early release, postwar release, forced repatriation to Japan, and death in internment camps—are at the core of my work. Drawing on official records and oral histories shared by family members of former internees, I explore these histories and their complexities through my artistic practice.

My participation in this project is not only a personal journey towards a deeper understanding of culture and history, but also a tribute to earlier generations of Japanese immigrants and their descendants who contributed to the development of today's Japanese and Nikkei communities in Australia.

Through my art, I seek to bring greater visibility to the histories of Japanese people in Australia before, during, and after the war, illuminating their experiences and the enduring contributions they have made to Japanese and Nikkei communities in Australia.

Concept

Trace the Traces is a personal research project within the global research project Past Wrongs, Future Choices. Beginning with the history of Japanese civilian internment in Australia during and after the Second World War, it explores migration, belonging, memory, and the question of what it means to have a place to return to.

Through archival research, site visits and conversations with descendants, I trace the different routes taken by Japanese people whose lives were shaped by the war. Some remained in Australia, others were forcibly repatriated to Japan, some died in internment camps, and others returned to Australia in later years. These intersecting histories reveal how a shared historical event can lead to profoundly different paths.

I recognise that the personal meanings of these experiences belong to the people who lived them and their families. Rather than telling their stories on their behalf, I follow the routes that can be traced through records and places, attending to their intersections, divergences and gaps.

In the installation developed through this research, a hand-knotted fishing net translates historical journeys into a spatial form, with people, places and events becoming points connected by threads. The net brings different routes into relation while allowing each to retain its own direction and complexity.

Through these histories, I invite audiences to reflect on the meaning of home and belonging. What does it mean to return? Is the place we return to necessarily a place of refuge? By bringing historical routes into dialogue with my own experience of migration from Japan to Australia, I hope to open these questions to the experiences and reflections of others.