MURATA Iwataro
Born: About 1894 – Died: 9 April 1944
Particulars:
Iwataro was born in Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan in 1894 or 1895 and arrived in Australia in 1896, disembarking at Waibene / Thursday Island in Queensland. He resided in Waibene / Thursday Island for 21 years, Gimuy / Cairns for 19 years, and Mourilyan for five years. He returned to Japan between 1912 and 1913. When the Pacific War broke out, he was a labourer and mill worker in Cowley via Mourilyan. He was taken to New South Wales to be interned at Hay Internment Camp, then transferred to Loveday Internment Camp in South Australia, where he died at the camp hospital of pleurisy. His grave is in the Japanese Cemetery Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Nat Koyama
More info:
Nat Koyama
Artist/s Statement:
Iwataro was born in Nagasaki. It was quite a shocking coincidence that the other man I was creating work for came from Hiroshima, and for me to know that both died knowing nothing about what would happen to their hometowns.
I recently discovered one of my original settler ancestors John Murray owned a sugar cane plantation that used South Sea Islander labour. It was a kind of a synchronicity that my in-laws recently visited Australia from Japan and paid their respects at his grave where my mother’s name is also engraved. This culture of respect for ancestors is what seems to underlie this project, which contrasts with the cold bureaucratic language of the archival documents I found and the system of surveillance which created them, but perhaps this oppressive power deteriorates with time.
Artist Bio:
Nat Koyama works as an archivist at the Queensland State Archives in Meanjin / Brisbane, Australia. He studied art at Queensland College of Art and Kyoto University of the Arts on the Japanese government MEXT scholarship.