OKAZAKI Tatsuo
Born: 1 May 1895 – DIed: 1 January 1946
Particulars:
Tatsuo was born in Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. He was a single man working as a tailor in Kanaky / New Caledonia when the Pacific War broke out. He was taken to Australia to be interned at Hay Internment Camp in New South Wales, but he was admitted to hospital instead. He was later transferred to another hospital in South Australia and was not well throughout the war. At age 50, almost five months after the war ended, he died of tuberculosis. His grave is in the Japanese Cemetery, Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Mayu Kanamori
More info:
Taka Takiguchi
Artist/s Statement:
Dear Mr Tatsuo Okazaki,
Welcome back to Hiroshima. In the town of Takehara, which you reach by bus down the Kamogawa River from your hometown, a preservation district has been established, where traditional townhouses and sake breweries from the Edo Period are carefully maintained. I wonder if you were already working as a tailor of Japanese clothing in Takehara, which was once called ‘Little Kyoto’, or if you were already producing Western style ready made clothing such as police or factory uniforms. In New Caledonia, your skilful Japanese handiwork must have been highly valued by the community, despite the hardships you faced.
Floating clouds yesterday, today, and tomorrow it’s September
–Chizuko Shigeta
This is a haiku composed by my grandmother. I heard that you were hospitalised at the Loveday Internment Camp hospital on October 27 1945. Looking up at the innocent drifting clouds in the South Australian sky through the hospital window, you must have felt shaken and overwhelmed with despair by the news of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan’s defeat. While my grandmother looked up at the clouds over Hiroshima, Okazaki san, you were under the wide sky of Loveday, you also watched the clouds and thought of Hiroshima. I imagine that you both spent that September lost in sorrow and uncertainty, each under a different sky, yet bound by the same thoughts.
Welcome back, indeed.
Sincerely, Taka Takiguchi
Artist Bio:
Taka Takiguchi (滝口貴) is an independent artist and producer of Japanese (Hiroshima) heritage related stories based in Naarm / Melbourne, Australia. His practice delves into personal stories, places, their historical contexts, and our presence within them today. He explores relational phenomena – between memory, time, and language – bringing them to life through poetry, scriptwriting, and movement based techniques, including the Suzuki Method, Butoh, and shamanic/trance dance. His late grandmother’s thousands of haiku and handwritten journals remain a constant source of inspiration for his passion for writing poetry.