LIE In Dai
Born: 22 November 1878 – Died: 11 August 1944
Particulars:
In Dai was a Korean man, who was born in Busan, then called Fusan in South Korea. He was a businessman living in Batavia, Dutch East Indies which is now Jakarta in Indonesia, when the Pacific War broke out. He was arrested as an ‘enemy alien’ because at the time Korea was under Japanese colonial rule. He was taken to Australia and interned at Loveday Internment Camp in South Australia. He died of cancer of the soft palate at the age of 65. His grave is in the Japanese Cemetery in Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Mayu Kanamori
More info:
Susan Laura Sullivan
Artist/s Statement:
Living in the Dutch East Indies was perhaps Lie In Dai’s means of escaping one colonised country by moving to another, only to end his life in a third. Featuring my mother’s stamp album, this work highlights countries carrying colonial names. There was no Indonesia. No North or South Korea. Korea exists on a page with Japan. In the 1970s, we collected stamps and added Indonesia to the Dutch East Indies page. Australia’s pages are included too, and a list of country names. Public domain photographs show 1942 Batavia (pre-Japanese invasion), Batavia flag, Loveday camp, Busan groundbreaking ceremony of the Imperial Japan-built Gyeongbu Line railway (1901), and a 1940 Chosen carriage. Annexed in 1910, Korea gained independence from Japan in 1945.
Lie In Dai’s grave is superimposed with the 1945-1956 peace commemorative title, a peace that he never saw. Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and a stamp of artist Albert Namatjira are highlighted: Australia, still a colony, and still denying First Nations’ people their rights. Lie In Dai’s name appears thrice: on his marker, inverted covering the whole work, and crookedly on the left, symbolising how possibly, he never had a place of belonging.
Artist Bio:
Susan Laura Sullivan is co-editor of ‘Women of a Certain Age’ (2018). Her photography featured in Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s ‘Plan B Audio’ (2020) and ‘Moon Alignments’ (2023). Her work most recently was performed at Imagikon, Shizuoka, 2025. She lives and works in Japan.