SHIRASUGI Shinpei
Born: 8 January 1913 – Died: 28 May 1942
Particulars:
Shinpei was born in Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan. He was living and working as an employee in Dutch New Guinea which is now West Papua, Indonesia. He had a father living in Tokyo. When the Pacific War broke out, he was taken to Australia and was interned at Loveday Internment Camp in South Australia. He died five months later aged 29 at Barmera Base Hospital. The cause of death is not recorded in his files at the National Archives of Australia. His grave is in the Japanese Cemetery in Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Mayu Kanamori
More info:
Francesco Matteo Ford
Artist/s Statement:
This work is dedicated to Shinpei Shirasugi, a 29-year-old Japanese internee who died shortly after arriving at Loveday Internment Camp during World War II. As a 30-year-old man, I was struck by the abrupt end of his life, how war uprooted him from his home in Dutch New Guinea, leaving him to perish in a foreign land.
This mixed media assemblage explores displacement, memory, and the fragile beauty of hope amidst war. The exterior of the work mirrors the stark, corrugated Australian buildings where internees lived, while the interior reveals a meticulously crafted Japanese shrine, a sanctuary of peace and remembrance. This is my offering to what may be his memories, including imagery of 1930s Shizuoka, and so is filled with symbols of the culture he carried within him.
Visiting Wiradjuri Country Cowra, where he is buried, I felt the weight of history in its windswept plains, the same landscape that once held prisoners far from home. This work is a meditation on how fragments of the past remain with us, how loss transcends borders, and how, even in darkness, there is a quiet, enduring light within.
Artist Bio:
Francesco Matteo Ford is a multidisciplinary artist drawn to narratives of memory, belonging, and the intersections of cultural identity. Through layered symbolism and intimate craftsmanship, his art seeks to honour the unspoken echoes of the past while questioning what it means to carry hope across borders, time, and loss.