OMO Tokuju / Tohujyu
Born: 8 August 1915 – Died: 7 January 1946
Particulars:
Tokuju / Tohujyu was born in Okinawa Prefecture in Japan. He was a single man, a fisherman based in Singapore working for Kanashiro & Co. His father and mother still lived in Okinawa. When the Pacific War broke out, he was taken into custody and sent to Australia with other Japanese civilians captured in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. He was interned at Loveday Internment Camp in South Australia. He was admitted to the camp hospital in March 1945, then transferred to the Barmera Base Hospital, and was placed on the ‘dangerously ill’ list in July 1945. He continued to be hospitalised and died in early 1946 of pulmonary tuberculosis. His grave is in the Japanese Cemetery in Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Mayu Kanamori
More info:
Emily Kerr and Simon Thornton
Artist/s Statement:
I struggle to imagine what a young fisherman from Okinawa would have made of the arid interior of South Australia. I dream that he dreamed of the ocean. In this installation I am calling the ocean to him. The small boat in the image has embedded within it an Okinawan fabric pattern, carved and stretched into the surface. The porcelain fish are cut with a Japanese kitchen tool.
Artwork was photographed by Simon Thornton.
Artist Bio:
Emily Kerr and is a ceramic artist working with porcelain and high-fired stoneware clays on Ngunnawal Country in Canberra, Australia and Simon Thornton enjoys capturing the balance and arrangement of light and objects in the spaces defined by the lens.