Symposium on Japanese war art - online event

Please join us for an online symposium on the art and creativity of Japanese people incarcerated in World War II in Australasia and the Pacific.

10:30am - 2:30pm online only

A link will be sent to all registered attendees 2 days prior.

Please note Friday 11 February is an online event only.

There will also be an in person component to this syposium held on the 21 and 22 of July. For more information about the in person event: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/symposium-on-japanese-war-art-in-person-event-tickets-259133594557

This symposium, funded by the Toshiba International Foundation (Japan), is open to academics, students, curators, art critics, and the public who are interested in Japanese/Australasian history and art history. There will be no registration fee for attendees, but registration is mandatory for those who would like to join us over the internet (February) as well as those who would like to attend the event in-person in Adelaide. For further inquiry, please contact the symposium chair, Dr Tets Kimura, [email protected].

Thousands of Japanese people, and people of Japanese descent, were imprisoned in Australasia during WWII, but existing public knowledge of their internment is dominated by major incidents such as Cowra breakout and Featherston shooting. An extraordinary record of war camp life, to date overlooked by scholars, is the arts and crafts produced by the Japanese prisoners. This symposium, funded by the Toshiba International Foundation, examines the material culture made at prisoner of war and civilian camps across Australasia and the wider Pacific, and provides entirely new insights into Japanese-Australasian relations during the war, as well as the entanglements of art, identity, agency and human rights.

Symposium Convenors

Dr Tets Kimura (Flinders University, Australia) and Associate Professor Richard Bullen (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)

Online event: Friday 11 February

10:30- 10:45 Welcome

10:45 - 12:15 Session 1:

• Japanese internment, garden-making and environmental change during World War II, A/Prof James Beattie (Victoria University of Wellington)
• Art and spirituality at Featherston, A/Prof Michael Grimshaw (University of Canterbury)
• Music and performance at the Featherston Camp, Prof Henry Johnson (University of Otago)

12:15-12:45 Break

12:45-2:15 Session 2:

• “A definite feeling of antagonism”: Rising tensions over clothing at the Featherston prisoner-of-war camp in World War Two, A/Prof Kristyn Harman (University of Tasmania)(Online)
• Art materials’ sources and sanctioning of art making at the Featherston camp. A/Prof Richard Bullen (University of Canterbury)
• The afterlives of art: Problematising the anti-war message, Dr Karl Ian Cheng Chua (Ateneo de Manila University, The Philippines) (Online)

2:15-2:30 closing remarks

Photo caption: Japanese wooden ‘geta’ shoes created in the Loveday camp during WWII. Photo courtesy of Ryan Cantwell (see https://www.r-cantwell.com)

Host or Publisher College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences