HASHIMOTO Unosuke
橋本宇之助
Born: 19 March 1876 – Died: 13 July 1942
Particulars:
Unosuke was born in Wakayama Prefecture in Japan. He arrived in Australia in 1898 when he was 22 years old and worked as a labourer on Waibene / Thursday Island. Soon after, he moved to mainland Queensland and worked as a cane cutter in Gimuy / Cairns. He never returned to Japan during his 43 years in Australia. When the Pacific War broke out, he was working as a labourer in Yungaburra. When he was arrested, he had with him one bag and handed over 6 shillings and 3 pence in cash to the authorities. He was interned at Hay Internment Camp in New South Wales and died at age 66 from empyema caused by pneumonia. His grave is in the Japanese Cemetery in Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Mayu Kanamori
More info:
Donna Weeks
Artist/s Statement:
I was drawn to this project because of research I had been doing on early Japan-Australia relations, specifically the visit to Queensland in 1893 by Watanabe Kanjuro, an envoy sent by the Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu, himself a native of Wakayama Prefecture. Watanabe spent several weeks travelling through Queensland under the express orders to learn of the ‘conditions of Japanese migrants’. He produced a lengthy and detailed report and I have discovered a selection of photographs he took as well. Watanabe was also a key figure in an ‘immigration society’, with the purpose of ‘facilitating’ Japanese indentured labour throughout the Asia Pacific region.
I imagine that the two men, Minami and Hashimoto, who I am honouring, may have ventured to Australia on the back of Watanabe’s report. The map which joins the two pictures, the two men’s lives perhaps, is an illustration from Watanabe’s report.
For Hashimoto Unosuke, a farm labourer who travelled around north Queensland, I have ‘him’ standing on a Wakayama beach looking out to sea, a photograph of a beach I visited to reflect on the materials I read in the library in Wakayama while conducting this research. I wanted to give Hashimoto connection to his home prefecture, and a connection to the Watanabe report.
I honour their otherwise anonymous existence through connection with this government report. The ‘Watanabe Report’ has taken up more time than perhaps it should have but it demonstrates the deep historical connections between Japan and Australia, significant developments that took place well before these two men and their compatriots found themselves interned. It is an important part of the history of our two countries that needs to be told.
Artist Bio:
Donna Weeks is a political scientist and Emeritus Professor at Musashino University in Tokyo, Japan. Donna has an affinity for amateurish photography. She has studied, researched, and taught at universities in Tokyo and Queensland, Australia for several decades and now spends time bringing her various research projects to fruition.