Symposium on Japanese War Art: In Person event

Please join us for an in person symposium on Japanese war art:

Thursday 21 July 2022, Flinders Victoria Square, Adelaide, SA

4pm - 7pm

Keynote speech : Australian internment and POW camp histories , Prof Peter Monteath (Flinders University)

Book launch: Four Years in a Red Coat (Translation of Miyakatsu Koike’s Loveday diary, Wakefield, 2022)

Friday 22 July 2022, Flinders Victoria Square Adelaide, SA

10am- 4pm

Section on ways to understand Japanese war art

• Untold history of the Japanese civilians before, during and after WWII, Dr Tets Kimura (Flinders University
• Anthropology, Memory and Australian WWII Internment Camps tangible Heritages, Prof Pedram Khosronejad (Powerhouse Museum & Western Sydney University)
• TBA, Emeritus Prof Greg O’Brien (La Trobe University)

Section on Australia-Japan relations

• Art and creativity in the Riverina: The Hay Internment Camps, 1940-46, Dr Seumas Spark (Monash University)
• Japanese Prisoner of War Involvement in Allied Leaflet Propaganda, Sophie Constable (Australian National University)
• Cowra’s ways of storytelling, Lawrance Ryan (Cowra Shire Council)

3:00-3:45 Round table discussion

Japanese war art from Asia and the Pacific discovered in SA homes, Rosalind Jamieson and Jenny Preston, in conversation with Tets Kimura

3:45 - 4:00 concluding remarks

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.

This symposium 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 in-person in Adelaide. For further inquiry, please contact the symposium chair, Dr Tets Kimura, [email protected]

Host or Publisher College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences