“We take so many photographs. How do we know which ones are important, which ones matter?”

Japanese photographer, entrepreneur and inventor Yasukichi Murakami was the talk of the town in Broome and Darwin in the early 1900s, until the outbreak of the Second World War saw him and his family, like all Japanese in Australia, interned as enemy aliens. Murakami’s photographs were impounded and subsequently lost.

Using photographic projections, video, original music, soundscape, and dramatic action, Japanese-Australian photographer and writer Mayu Kanamori goes in search of Murakami’s lost photographs. Uncovering a fascinating story of unlikely friendships, thwarted ambition and unrequited love,Yasukichi Murakami stirs our collective amnesia about the history of the Japanese in Australia.

Yasukichi Murakami is a meditation on love, truth and, in a digital age where cameras proliferate, the nature of photography.

About Murakami – A Project Blog 

Created and written by Mayu Kanamori

Directed by Malcolm Blaylock

Music and sound design by Terumi Narushima

Dramaturg Jane Bodie

Visual Design  Mic Gruchy

Lighting Design Luiz Pampolha

Dramturgic Consultant Yuji Sone

Performed by Arisa Yura & Kuni Hashimoto with Yumi Umiumare

Produced by Annette Shun Wah, Performance 4a

Performance History 

Murakami is developed with the assistance of the Federal Government through its arts funding and advisory body, the Australia Council; Creative Ecologies Lab, Media, Music, Communications and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University; the Northern Territory Government; and Playwriting Australia.