YAMASHITA Kinzo
Born: 3 May 1897 – Died: 20 January 1944
Particulars:
Kinzo was born in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan in the 1890s. After finishing school he worked as a fisherman, then left Japan to work as a fisherman in Suva, Fiji when he was 21. He returned to Japan to marry Komiyo, who was from Tanami, Wakayama Prefecture, bringing her back to Suva. They never returned to Japan.
In 1927 they settled in Tonga where Kinzo was a fisherman and a storekeeper. His other wife Suma took some of their children to Japan in 1937. Kinzo and Komiyo remained with their three children, who were all born in Nuku’alofa, Tonga. Their names were Nanae, Susumu, and Satsuki.
When the Pacific war broke out, Kinzo was interned on Matiu / Somes Island in Wellington Harbour, Aotearoa / New Zealand, while Komiyo was kept with the other internee wives and children near Auckland. The family was reunited to be sent on a flight to Australia in 1943. That flight crashed flying out of Auckland. Komiyo and Satsuki died in the plane crash, while Kinzo, Nanae, and Susumu survived. The three of them were then taken to internment in Australia by boat. Kinzo died there in 1944.
Despite being born in Tonga where their parents had been for between 15 and 20 years, and never having been to Japan, 14-year-old Nanae and 5-year-old Susumu were sent to Japan at the end of the war.
–Sophie Constable
More info:
Ebonie Laufilitoga Maka Fifita with Aniselina Nishi, Nuki Beazley, Jenni Heka, Peti Taufa, Vitolio Laufilitoga Maka & friends, Mayuko Uene Haruna, Sophie Constable and Mayu Kanamori
Artist/s Statement:
Reflecting their three main homes, the Yamashita family’s works join Tongan, Fijian, and Japanese pigments, dyes, cloth, and designs. On layers of paper mulberry bark pounded together to form ngatu cloth, Tongan and Fijian earth pigments catch the kupesi designs, highlighted with overlaid dyes from the bark of red mangrove and other medicinal plants also used to honour all layers of life and transitions to and from it. The interlocking circles create a pattern familiar in Pasifika as well as Japan, and the manulua (two birds / birds in flight) design became common vocabulary in all the works. This grounding has been digitally combined with an overlay of katagami stencil patterns on indigo-dyed kimono silk.
Kinzo’s artwork is paired with his wife Komiyo’s artwork. Their names lie back to back along a central rope binding and pathway. On Kinzo’s work, a fishing net pattern combining Fijian and Japanese designs, and seigaiha speak to events uniting each of their homes and the paths linking them. His work is also fringed with a kupesi that speaks of the humble people of the grassroots, perseverance, and determination.
Artist Bio:
Nurtured by fele artist Ebonie Laufilitoga Maka Fifita in her home, the Yamashita family works are a collaboration between many hands and hearts that have informed and contributed, including Aniselina Nishi, Nuki Beazley, Jenni Heka, Peti Taufa, Vitolio Laufilitoga Maka and friends, Mayuko Uene Haruna, Sophie Constable, and Mayu Kanamori.
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