MIYAKUNI Maria Frederika
Born: 17 December 1888 – Died: 10 July 1943
Particulars:
Maria Frederika Miyakuni was born in Wanoasih in Java in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. When the Pacific War broke out, she was a widow with three adult children, and was living in Probolinggo. She was taken to Australia with her son Karel Frederik, who was a single man working as a clerk in a post office, and one of her daughters Cecilia Adriana Garetta, also not married. All three were interned at Tatura Internment Camp in Victoria. Her other daughter who was married with a European surname Ernst remained in Java. Maria Frederika died at age 54, about one month after her son Karel Frederik married an internee in the Tatura Internment Camp. The cause of her death is not recorded in documents held at the National Archives of Australia. Her grave is in the Japanese Cemetery in Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Mayu Kanamori
More info:
Vera Mackie
Artist/s Statement:
Maria Frederika Miyakuni is described as a ‘Dutch Japanese’ widow, one of the few European women to be interned with the Japanese enemy aliens. I have chosen a photograph of bamboo, as a plant which grows in Indonesia, Japan, and northern Australia, which has connotations of resilience in adversity. It is, however, a bamboo fence which connotes notions of confinement. This is overlaid with text which refers to the few facts we have about her travels: birth in Wanoasih, residence in Probolinggo until her arrest, travel to Melbourne, internment at Tatura, and her death and burial in July 1942.
Artist Bio:
Vera Mackie is Emeritus Professor at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. In addition to her writings on gender relations and the history of feminism in Japan, she co-edited (with Paul Jones) ‘Relationships: Japan and Australia 1870s–1950s’ (2001).