Adam Aitken
Adam Aitken is a teacher, poet, and non-fiction writer, who was born in London, United Kingdom. He spent his early childhood in Thailand and Malaysia, before settling in Sydney, Australia. Winner of the 2021 Patrick White Award, he is the author of six full length collections of poetry, most recently ‘Revenants’ (2022) and ‘Archipelago’ (2018), which was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. He was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Hawai’i, and Poet in Residence at the Keesing Studio in Paris in 2011. He co-edited ‘Contemporary Asian Australian Poets’ in 2013. His writing shows a deep interest in contemporary cultural issues, especially issues of identity and cultural hybridity. His memoir ‘One Hundred Letters Home’ (2016) was longlisted for the Association for the Study of Australian Literature Medal in 2017.
Akira Kamada
Akira Kamada is a contemporary sculptor and installation artist who focuses on issues of social justice, and the impact of human behaviour on the natural environment. He mostly works with organic or recycled materials.
Alanna Everitt
Alanna Everitt is a creative 10-year-old artist from Vancouver, Canada, where she lives with her parents and younger sister. After learning about the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II in her social studies class, Alanna has developed a deep interest in understanding historical injustices and honouring those affected. With natural curiosity and intelligence beyond her years, Alanna approaches this commemorative project as an opportunity to connect with history in a meaningful way. She brings a fresh perspective and sincere desire to honour the memory of internees through her artistic expression. Alanna enjoys various creative pursuits, including visual arts, aerial silks, and gymnastics. An avid reader, she finds inspiration in stories that help her understand diverse perspectives and experiences, a quality she hopes to bring to this memorial project.
Alli Parker
Alli Parker is a Japanese Australian author and screenwriter living on the Lands of the Wurundjeri people in Melbourne, Australia. Her debut novel, ‘At the Foot of the Cherry Tree’ became an instant bestseller and is a novelisation of the true story of Australia’s first Japanese war bride, Cherry Parker, also Alli’s grandmother. Her second novel, ‘Until the Red Leaves Fall’, was published in 2025 and explores more Australian Japanese forgotten histories. Her screenwriting work includes ‘Jack Irish’, ‘Secret Bridesmaids’ Business’ and ‘Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries’.
Andras Keszei
Andras Keszei is a scientist, teacher, and artist. He works on the genetics and ecology of plants and currently lectures in this field at The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. He also dabbles in scientific illustration and printmaking. He was born in Hungary and has spent close to 30 years of his life in Australia.
Andrew Hasegawa
Andrew Hasegawa is a fourth-generation Japanese Australian. His great-grandfather Setsutaro Hasegawa immigrated to Australia in 1897. Andrew is an Australian and also a proud Nikkei Australian. From a young age, he had a keen interest in his Japanese heritage, and at the age of 20, he went to Japan. The quest to know who he was and why his great-grandfather came to Australia has become a driving force in his life. Andrew was a 2024 scholar-in-residence for the international collaborative project Past Wrongs Future Choices. He has written research papers and continues to speak publicly about Nikkei Australian histories.
Anika Taggart
Anika Taggart is 7 years old, the daughter of Yasue and John Taggart. She lives in Australia.
Aniselina Nishi
Aniselina Nishi is 24 years old, born in Aotearoa / New Zealand and grew up on the islands of Tonga. She has always been a naturally artistic person, drawing since she was a little girl. She now resides in New Zealand and still enjoys creating artistic works whenever inspiration strikes.
Anna Sachiko Turnbull Wilkinson
Anna Sachiko Turnbull Wilkinson (she/her) is a historian specialising in Asian Australian history, migration, memory, post-1945 conflicts, and the intersection of gender and race. Being part of the Japanese Australian diaspora, Anna is interested in how intimate and personal experiences intersect with larger histories and national narratives. Through her doctoral research, Anna is examining the social and cultural history of Asian Australian war bride marriages between 1945 and 1975. She is passionate about connecting with wider audiences and has given several public talks about her research, including a panel organised by Nikkei Australia for Women’s History Month 2025. Anna was also featured in ABC Radio National’s History Listen episode titled ‘My Grandmother is a Japanese War Bride’.
Annabelle Louys
Annabelle Louys is a primary school student in Canberra, Australia.
Aoife Wilkinson and Conor Fieldstead
Aoife Wilkinson and Conor Fieldstead met in Japan and now live and work in Meanjin / Brisbane, Australia. Aoife holds a Doctorate in Philosophy in Japanese Studies from The University of Queensland, and Conor is a graduate of International Studies and Information Technology. While Aoife enjoys digging around in archives and looking at old photographs, Conor brings the vision together using his knowledge of composition and digital art.
Arisa Yura
Arisa Yura is a Japanese Australian actor, voice artist, writer, and taiko drummer, working extensively across theatre, film, radio, and television.
Arisa Yura with Renon Yura Yuen
Arisa Yura is a Japanese Australian actor, voice artist, writer, and taiko drummer, working extensively across theatre, film, radio, and television. Along with her son Renon Yura Yuen, Arisa created artworks for the five children who died while they were interned in Australia.
Ashley Masuda
Ashley Masuda is a third-generation Nikkei from Broome, Western Australia. He takes great pride in the legacy left to him by his grandfather Akira Masuda, who arrived in Broome in the 1950s in search of work in the pearling industry. Ashley feels blessed that his grandfather laid such a strong foundation, enabling the family to thrive and enjoy a good life today. Like many others, his grandfather was part of a wave of migrants seeking a better future. As Ashley reflects on the past, he honours the sacrifices and hardships those early migrants endured, both in the pearling industry and during the war.
Ayako Saito
Ayako Saito grew up in Chiba Prefecture, Japan and had lived in Miyakojima for eight years. She used to work in the travel industry because she loved history.
Belinda Pratten
Belinda Pratten has a Bachelor of Economics from The University of Sydney, Australia. After studying photography at Sydney Technical College between 1993 and 1994, Belinda joined the Australian Financial Review as a photojournalist and deputy picture editor. In 1998, she moved to Canberra to work in the press gallery. Since 2001, she has been working as a freelance photographer, filmmaker, and teacher. Belinda currently resides on the unceded Lands of the Wurundjeri people in Melbourne.
Belinda’s photographic work has been collected by The National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Museum and Gallery, The Australian War Memorial, ACT Legislative Assembly Art Collection, as well as private collectors. Belinda has been exhibiting since 1996, with solo shows at The Sydney Opera House (1996), Brewarrina Council Chambers (1998), Corelli’s Cafe Newtown (1999), Belconnen Arts Centre (2008), Tap Gallery Sydney (2011), Bleeding Heart Gallery Brisbane (2011), Kindness House Melbourne (2011), PhotoAccess Canberra (2010 and 2012), and The Photography Room (2016).
Her feature drama script ‘Broken Glass’ was longlisted for the 2023 Monte Miller Awards, and she is writing her first novel.
Ben Shiosaki
Ben Shiosaki is a fourth-generation Nikkei who resides in Geraldton, Western Australia. With a passion for history and photography, he believes these stories and legacies in the When You Call My Name Project should not be forgotten.
Ben Shiosaki with Cooper Pratt
Ben Shiosaki is a fourth-generation Nikkei who resides in Geraldton, Western Australia. With a passion for history and photography, he believes these stories and legacies in the When You Call My Name Project should not be forgotten. Cooper Pratt is Ben’s nephew.
Ben Shiosaki with JoAnne Yates
Ben Shiosaki is a fourth-generation Nikkei who resides in Geraldton, Western Australia. With a passion for history and photography, he believes these stories and legacies in the When You Call My Name Project should not be forgotten. JoAnne Yates is Ben’s niece.
Ben Shiosaki with Jordan Shiosaki
Ben Shiosaki is a fourth-generation Nikkei who resides in Geraldton, Western Australia. With a passion for history and photography, he believes these stories and legacies in the When You Call My Name Project should not be forgotten. Jordan Shiosaki is Ben’s nephew.
Ben Shiosaki with Paul Gibson
Ben Shiosaki is a fourth-generation Nikkei who resides in Geraldton, Western Australia. With a passion for history and photography, he believes these stories and legacies in the When You Call My Name Project should not be forgotten. Paul Gibson is Ben’s cousin.
Ben Shiosaki with Stella Pratt
Ben Shiosaki is a fourth-generation Nikkei who resides in Geraldton, Western Australia. With a passion for history and photography, he believes these stories and legacies in the When You Call My Name Project should not be forgotten. Stella Pratt is Ben’s niece.
Bruce Dann
Bruce Dann lives with his young family in Broome, Western Australia and takes great pride in his Japanese heritage. Recently, he supported his eldest daughter in travelling to Wakayama Prefecture in Japan through the St Mary’s College – Taiji Elementary and High School student exchange program, a meaningful opportunity for the family to reconnect, with their ancestral roots after so long. Bruce’s great-grandfather came from Wakayama Prefecture in the early 1900s to work in the pearling industry. During the war, he was interned and later deported back to Japan, never to return. The family holds fond memories of a man who deeply loved and cared for his Australian family, only to be cut off and displaced by the devastation of war.
Cara-Ann Simpson
Cara-Ann Simpson is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and author based on the lands of the Wakka Wakka Nation in southern Queensland, Australia. Her work encompasses the arts, culture, tourism, festival, and land management sectors. Cara-Ann’s practice engages with sensory perception, deep listening, and environmental interaction. She is the recipient of the Heysen Prize for Landscape 2022, University of Ballarat Artist Prize 2012, and Hobday and Hingston Bursary 2007. She has received funding from Creative Australia, Arts Queensland, Arts Victoria, and the Regional Arts Fund for Australian and international projects.
Cheri Hills
Cheri Hills is a florist and horticulturalist based in Brisbane, Australia.
Chie Muraoka
Chie Muraoka is a web developer and designer based in Sydney, Australia. She has been collaborating on not-for-profit, educational, and community based arts projects. She creates design strategies incorporating audio, visual, complex search-and-collate, and geo-locative functions to enable community storytelling and international student exchanges. Her web based projects include the ‘When You Call My Name Project’ website and the ‘Cowra Japanese War Cemetery Database’.
Christopher Bentley
Christopher Bentley is a digital artist based in Ipswich in Queensland, Australia with a focus on digital preservation, obsolescence, the decay of information, and how to keep it safely for a long time. Christopher’s journey in digital preservation stems from a deep seated curiosity about the intersection of technology and memory. Through his work, he seeks to bridge the gaps between past, present, and future; advocating for the importance of preserving our digital legacy and finding new ways to work with obsolete tools and limitations.
Colin Smith
Colin Smith is an artist, writer, and translator of art texts. Originally from New Jersey, USA, he has been living in Osaka, Japan since 1998. He is fascinated with old, historic, and mysterious things. His arts practice utilises found or ready made objects and images.
Corey Wakeling
Corey Wakeling is a writer, scholar, and translator specialising in modern and contemporary literature. He lives in Tokyo, Japan where he works as an associate professor of English literature at Aoyama Gakuin University. He is the author of four poetry collections, including ‘Uncle of Cats’ (Cordite Books 2025). He also wrote the monograph ‘Beckett’s Laboratory’ (2022), co-edited the Australian poetry anthology ‘Outcrop’ (2013), and contributed numerous essays on modern and contemporary literature and performance.
Csilla Keszei
Csilla Keszei is in high school in Canberra, Australia and is doing Art Inspire.
Cynthia Breheny
Cynthia Breheny was born and educated in Tasmania, Australia. She has a Bachelor of Architecture from The University of Tasmania and a Certificate IV in Visual Art from the Canberra Institute of Technology. After graduating, she worked as an architect in Canberra. Her significant achievements include winning The University of Canberra Best Childrens’ Information Book prize for ‘Inside Canberra’ in 2013. Cynthia is a practising visual artist, who has developed fine drafting and observational skills to a high degree. She is interested in artwork that gives pleasure, incorporating familiar pre-used objects re-used in unexpected juxtaposition. She aims to help conservation of the natural environment by creating appropriate artwork that informs.
Dai-rong Wu
Dai-Rong Wu currently serves as the Chairperson of the Graduate Institute of Arts and Humanities Education, as well as an Associate Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Her research concentrates on socially engaged art as pedagogy, and what/how knowledge is produced in the process of both art-making and artistic learning. As an artist-teacher, Wu launched the pedagogical art project When A Home Becomes A Museum at the Taipei Veterans’ Home, which has been in effect since 2014. Additionally, she is the principal investigator of Experience as Arts, an aesthetic education project, commissioned by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. She has lead her students at the Taipei National University of the Arts to create artworks of the internees from Taiwan.
David Shield
David Shield is a Yamada Style koto, jyushichigen, and shamisen musician, kimono maker, and Japanese interpreter based in Brisbane, Australia. He spent many years learning his art in Japan under the renowned musician Tanno Isejyu. He regularly returns to Japan to continue his studies and performs for groups both in Japan and in Australia, and makes all his own kimonos.
Derek Lee
Derek Lee is is a third-generation Nikkei born in Broome, Australia. He is a descendant of the Yawuru, Ngarluma, and Yamatji peoples. His grandfather Hatoyama, originally came from Nagasaki Prefecture. Hatoyama was interned during the war, deported, and later returned to Australia in the 1950s to work in the pearling industry. He reunited with his family and resumed his position as head diver for Streeter & Male Company. Derek reflects with pride that his grandfather may have been small in stature, but he was a strong man and well respected in the community and in the pearling industry.
Deveni Temu
Deveni Temu retired from the Pacific Librarian position in December 2017, and is now Research Officer at the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. He is a direct descendant of a Papuan carrier/labourer during the World War II Kokoda Trail Campaign.
Donna Weeks
Donna Weeks is a political scientist and Emeritus Professor at Musashino University in Tokyo, Japan. Donna has an affinity for amateurish photography. She has studied, researched, and taught at universities in Tokyo and Queensland, Australia for several decades and now spends time bringing her various research projects to fruition.
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
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.
Eliott June
Eliott June is an emerging multidisciplinary artist based in Canberra, Australia. Eliott’s work often revolves around expressionism, life’s slices, and queerness.
Elizsa and Chloe
Elizsa and Chloe are aged 10 and 11 respectively. They live in British Columbia, Canada. Elizsa’s favourite thing is boba, and Chloe’s favourite thing is turtles.
Elysha Rei
Elysha Rei is a Japanese Australian artist based in Magandjin / Brisbane, Australia. Her intricate paper-based works explore the intersections of memory, identity, and belonging through the language of paper. Specialising in highly detailed hand-cut designs and large scale site specific installations, Elysha transforms single sheets of paper into layered stories, bridging cultural histories and contemporary practice. Over the past two decades, her work has been commissioned, exhibited, and collected both nationally and internationally. She was the inaugural Executive Chair of Nikkei Australia between 2022 and 2025.
Emily Kerr and Simon Thornton
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.
Eriko Arnold
Eriko Arnold is originally from Uruma City, formerly Ishikawa City, in Okinawa, Japan. She moved to Sydney, Australia in 2017 with her family. Eriko is currently teaching Japanese to children with a Japanese background.
Ery Higa
Ery Higa is a Brazilian born graphic designer raised by Okinawan parents who emigrated in the 1960s. With a background in branding, merchandise, and various digital creative fields, Ery has called Australia her home for over nine years, and continues exploring design as a storytelling and connection tool.
Ferina Ekawati
Ferina Ekawati was born in Bandung, Indonesia. She has always had a passion for Japan, reading manga in primary school, studying Japanese at university in Indonesia, and then in Shizuoka City in Japan. She settled in Australia 14 years ago, where she still enjoys Japanese food and anime with her two children and partner.
Ferina Ekawati and Madeline Louys
Ferina Ekawati and Madeline Louys are a mother and daughter team. Ferina was born in Bandung, Indonesia. After studying in Japan, she settled in Australia 14 years ago, where she still enjoys Japanese food and anime with her two children and partner. Ferina’s daughter Maddie is a primary school student in Canberra, Australia where she was born.
Francesco Matteo Ford
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.
Gary Hamaguchi
Gary Hamaguchi resides in Broome, Western Australia and is the eldest son of Pearl and Hiroshi Hamaguchi, a well respected local family, who operated a pearl farm south of Broome. Growing up as the eldest of six sons in a family tied to the ebb and flow of the pearling industry have shaped him deeply, and responsibility, resilience, and a strong connection to the sea are words that describe Gary.
Gen Tamada
Gen Tamada was born in Gifu Prefecture in Japan. He currently lives in Tokyo and works as an architect.
Grace Gassin
Grace Gassin (Lîm Sò͘-chin 林素真) is a history curator and researcher based in Aotearoa / New Zealand. Much of her work focuses on highlighting the diverse historical and contemporary experiences of Australia and Aotearoa’s many Asian diaspora communities.
Hannah Attwood
Hannah Attwood is a dedicated arts worker with a background in art history, curation, and high level arts administration. As the Director of Brisbane Multicultural Arts Centre (BEMAC) in Queensland, Australia, she leads initiatives supporting Queensland’s diverse communities through artistic expression. Drawing on her curatorial expertise, Hannah creates thoughtfully designed programs that bring marginalised narratives to the forefront of cultural discourse. As a hobbyist archivist, she brings a deep appreciation for historical research and documentation to her professional work.
Her work at BEMAC involves collaborating with intercultural artists to explore narratives of home, identity, migration, and the hybridised cultures that shape contemporary Australia. Through exhibitions, performances, and community arts projects, Hannah creates platforms for voices that have historically been marginalised in Australia’s cultural landscape.
Hannah is particularly drawn to projects that illuminate the intersection of personal and historical narratives. Her approach to ‘The Compassionate Care of Kenji Makishima’ exemplifies her belief that art can serve as a vehicle for retrospective justice and healing, bridging temporal and cultural divides through acts of empathy and witness.
Storytelling lies at the heart of Hannah’s work. Through her curatorial projects and program leadership, she reveals how individual and collective narratives can challenge dominant historical perspectives. By bringing together her professional work in intercultural arts facilitation with her personal passion for archival discovery, Hannah endeavours to present intimate reflections on Australia’s complex cultural history while inviting audiences to consider how our past continues to shape our present.
Originally from California, USA, Hannah has called Australia home for 25 years. She currently lives in Brisbane, Australia with her three lovely children.
Helen Miller
Helen Miller started her own fashion label in 2000 and opened her SOOKii Store + Studio in Highgate Hill in Brisbane, Australia in 2004. Exploring innovative ways of working with textiles inspired by her multicultural heritage, she reimagines vintage Japanese kimono into ready to wear garments, costumes, and various objects. This enables Helen to communicate her identity through fashion and art. Helen has also exhibited in local commercial and regional art galleries in recent years.
Helen Wagner
Helen Wagner is an Australian lawyer, teacher and artist born in Melbourne in 1959. As a lawyer, she fought for compensation for workers with silicosis in Hong Kong.
In 1993, she went to live in India and worked in the community as a street artist. Most of her work can be found on the exteriors of buildings, railway stations, and boundary walls. Two projects were undertaken with the Rouble Nagi Art Foundation, collaborating with local artists and neighbourhood children to bring colour to their lives and their walls.
Hideko Sueoka
Hideko Sueoka is a Tokyo based poet and translator, born and raised in Japan. Her translation on photography, ‘Shigeichi Nagano – Magazine Work 60s’, was published in 2009. She was the 2013 winner of Troubadour International Poetry Competition and the winning poem was highly recommended in the Forward Prize 2014 in the United Kingdom. Her debut poetry chapbook, ‘Untouched Landscape’, was published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House in 2018. Her poems have been published in British magazines such as ‘Stand’, ‘Porridge’, ‘Ink Sweat and Tears’, Canadian magazine ‘long con mag’, American magazine ‘ANMLY’, various anthologies and zines. She is currently obtaining a master degree at Manchester Writing School in the United Kingdom.
Hiromi Ashlin with Akabanaa Cairns Eisaa Group
Hiromi Ashlin is an artist originally from Yokohama, Japan. She became interested in the Okinawan culture and their people. As she is a member of Akabanaa Cairns Eisaa group in Cairns, Australia, she decided to collaborate with group members to create this piece.
Iori Nosaka (野坂衣織)
Iori Nosaka (野坂衣織) was born in Itoigawa City, Niigata Prefecture in Japan. She graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, Faculty of Painting, Tama Art University in 2002. She has created community works, such as her original porcelain panel painting at Sakuraso, a nursing home for the elderly in Saku City, Nagano Prefecture. In addition, Iori has held numerous solo and group exhibitions. She is currently painting mainly with acrylics.
Jai Newton
Jai Newton was born in Broome, Western Australia, but spent his school years on the east coast of Australia. After completing his university studies, he returned to Broome as a health professional, driven by a strong commitment to give back to his community. Jai now serves as a manager in Indigenous health, playing a key role in improving health outcomes and supporting culturally appropriate care. His return home was also for deeply personal reasons – he wanted his young family to grow up with a strong connection to the land and sea, which are central to his cultural heritage. Jai’s grandfather was interned during World War II and then deported. By the early 1950s, Australia was rebuilding diplomatic and trade relations with Japan, allowing the return of some Japanese workers in the pearling industries. And fortunately, Jai’s grandfather was able to return and reunite with his family.
Jaissen Arnasalon
Jaissen Arnasalon is a primary school student in Canberra, Australia.
Jan Hirano Kirkham
Jan Hirano Kirkham is a second-generation Japanese Australian who was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1954. She is the second daughter of Japanese war bride Akiko Kirkham. She resides on acreage in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Queensland, where her happy place is forest bathing in her expansive garden.
Jan Lee
Jan Lee is an 11-year-old girl whose talent is playing the piano. She was born in Hong Kong, China. Jan strives to become an artist when she grows up.
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa is the author of about a dozen full length poetry collections. She also sometimes writes prose. Her most recent book ‘Luna’ was published in 2024 . She is also the editor of ‘women : poetry : migration [an anthology]’, a collection which contains poems and short accompanying essays by 50 women living outside their birth countries. She lives in Hamamatsu in Japan.
Janet Sietsma
Janet Sietsma is an Australian of Dutch heritage, who has a deep appreciation for the often overlooked stories of individuals living far from their homeland. She finds joy in pottery, particularly when creating pieces as heartfelt gifts for others.
Jennifer K Dick
Jennifer K Dick from Iowa, USA, has a long connection to text and image work, both as a scholar and practitioner. Her books include ‘That Which I Touch Has No Name’ (2022), ‘Lilith: A Novel in Fragments’ (2019), ‘Circuits’ (2013), and ‘Florescence’ (2004) as well as seven chap/artbooks. Her visual/text installation ‘En-Coding the Urban’ covered the Le Buffet building at the SBB Banhof in Basel in 2016. She curates Ivy Writers Paris reading series and co-organises the Ecrire l’Art residency for French authors at La Kunsthalle Mulhouse Centre d’Art Contemporain, while teaching at UHA in Mulhouse, France.
Jennifer Procter
Jennifer Procter is an interdisciplinary artist based on Ngunawal / Ngambri land in Canberra, Australia. A director, choreographer, performer, teacher, and visual artist, she paused her professional arts career for eight years to practice meditation in Borneo, Nepal, India, and Australia. Now in Canberra, she creates art and teaches mindfulness, movement, and art. Grounded in movement and stillness, her work reflects Buddhist philosophies of impermanence and non-self.
Jhao-han Wang
Jhao-han Wang, born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, is a 20-year-old student studying history and sociology at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Fascinated by the intersection of art and history, she has created artwork for the Taiwanese internee Sai Bo, who was born in Kaohsiung, which was known as Takao at the time in 1903.
Jo Anne Shiosaki
Jo Anne Shiosaki is a fourth-generation Nikkei who lives in Rubibi / Broome, Western Australia. Jo’s great-grandparents were one of the earliest Japanese families to migrate to Broome in the late 1800s. Her great-grandfather served as the President of the Japan Club in Broome before the war. She acknowledges the Nikkei community of Broome for helping to create these photographic images, and their willingness to share deeply personal experiences in order to preserve the memories of those who endured internment.
John Grech
John Grech sees himself as a learner, artist, writer, and mentor, who works through words, actions, drawing, photography, painting, film, music and sound, and wood/furniture-making. He became interested in Japanese culture, art, and philosophy when he discovered the work of John Cage while at art school. Cage opened a door to many approaches that are key to his creative process such as the pursuit of imperfection, chance, randomness, minimalism, simplicity, and chaos, all grounded in human happenstance. One of his recent works is a short film about the Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu called ‘Time and Endurance’ (2024).
John Taggart with Yasue Taggart
John Taggart was born in Newcastle in Australia, and grew up in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. He is a librarian and has always had an appreciation of history, nature, and the sea. John is married to Yasue, who is from Okinawa, Japan.
Kaino Shioji
Kaino Shioji is is the youngest son of Kelly and Shino Shioji. At just eight years old, he was eager to be part of this project. Sitting beside the old diving suit and boots, Kaino was reminded of his grandfather, who migrated to Australia in the 1950s and contributed to the pearling industry by crafting many of the lead weighted boots used by deep sea divers. Kaino feels a great pride in his grandfather’s legacy. He has a strong love of learning, enjoys helping his father cook, and finds joy in fishing and spending time out on Country.
Kairo Gould
Kairo Gould is a fourth-generation Japanese Australian living in Brisbane, Australia. Currently in high school, his interests include Japanese language and culture, cooking, and archery.
Kao and Mirai
Kao and Mirai are mother and son living in Tokyo, Japan. They live in a house with a dog and Mirai’s dad. Grandmother lives next door. Kao and Mirai’s house has been standing since before the war. During World War II air raids, it was the only house in the neighbourhood that wasn’t burned down, so many people sheltered there. The house narrowly escaped destruction because an incendiary bomb happened to get stuck on a silver tray inside a wardrobe.
Kao treasures her memories of visiting her sister in Australia, especially memories of going on drives and swimming in the sea.
Kaori Irobe Osawa
Kaori Irobe Osawa is a great-grand-daughter of Yasukichi Murakami, who lived and worked in Broome and Darwin prior to the outbreak of the Pacific War.
Karen Tengan Okuda
Karen Tengan Okuda is a second-generation Okinawan Australian, with ancestry from Gushikawa, Miyako Island, and Amami Oshima.
Kazuko Chalker
Kazuko Chalker graduated Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney with first class honours in Visual Arts, and also received a scholarship to study at Alfred University in New York, USA. She shows her artwork through various exhibitions. Currently she enjoys volunteering at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney, Australia as an art guide.
Keiko Tamura
Keiko Tamura is an honorary researcher in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University. She led the Cowra Japanese War Cemetery Online Database project between 2016 and 2019.
Kerry Laws
Kerry Laws left Sydney, Australia in 2014, leaving behind her career as an educator, to establish an art practice amongst the wildlife and forests of Tomerong, near Jervis Bay on the south coast of New South Wales. She primarily works with charcoal, pen, acrylics or mixed media, using her art to tell stories about, or express responses to, the people and happenings around her. Kerry is an active member of her community and in the art scene, on environmental campaigns, and as a volunteer with the local wildlife rescue group.
Kevin Simmonds
Kevin Simmonds is a writer and musician originally from New Orleans, USA. His most recent book is ‘The Monster I am Today: Leontyne Price and a Life in Verse’ (2021). He spends his time between San Francisco, Palm Springs in the USA and Tokyo, Japan.
Kimika Lee
Kimika Lee is a dedicated health practitioner based in Broome, Western Australia. A proud second-generation Nikkei, her father migrated from Wakayama Prefecture to work in the pearling industry, and her grandfather was among those interned at Hay and later deported after World War II. Deeply committed to the wellbeing of Indigenous communities, Kimika holds the distinction of being the only Aboriginal health worker in Australia qualified in palliative care. A devoted grandmother to nine grandchildren, she cherishes time with her family, and enjoys fishing and gardening in her spare time.
Kosuke Tamada
Kosuke Tamada was born in Kagurazaka in Tokyo, Japan. He is currently a film student at university. He likes things that cannot be expressed in words.
Kozue Kawahira with Naomi Kawahira
Kozue Kawahira was born in Okinawa and grew up in Oroku, Naha, Okinawa, Japan. She moved to Australia in the late 1990s and now lives with her family in Sydney, Australia. Naomi is her daughter.
Kumiko Ho
Kumiko Ho was born in Itoman City in Okinawa, Japan. She married and moved to Sydney, Australia in 2011. She learned to play the sanshin (Okinawan banjo) in Okinawa and performs in Australia.
Larissa Kondo
Larissa Kondo is an elementary school teacher, history enthusiast, and fourth-generation Japanese Canadian. Like Higa Matsugen, her grandfather was declared an ‘enemy alien’ and incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp during World War II. When Larissa remembers her grandfather, she sees much more than an internee. She imagines Matsugen’s family felt the same way.
Lien-hung Chen
Lien-hung Chen is based in Tainan, Taiwan and uses photography to explore the connections between memory and others. They enjoy slowness and a touch of poetry, creating commemorative objects from life experiences that can be revisited through memories of the past.
Liz Hill
Liz Hill practises visual arts after many years working in youth and community services and more recently in the small to medium arts sector. Liz has a Master of Theatre Studies and a Diploma of Visual Arts, and is currently exploring watercolour and acrylic painting, and attempting pottery. Liz recently spent 10 months in Japan and has been inspired by random seasonal words and Nihonga painting.
Lucy Xu
Lucy Xu is studying for her Master’s degree at The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Her research projects focus on the complexities of identity – particularly among diasporic communities.
Maira Shimada
Maira Shimada is a Japanese-Australian artist based in Eora / Sydney. Foundations in Western and Japanese music form root to all other artforms she rooms with, be it dance, cinema, theatre or poetry. Everything is an experiment. Maira holds up mirrors and bounces light at odd angles. Simultaneously fascinated by and rejective of technological advancement, she has either utilised or abandoned technology to access other worlds in her work. Media range across video, ink, bread, sound, textile, and installation. She has presented in Eora group exhibitions at Darren Knight Gallery and Tiles Lewisham, with a 2023 solo exhibition at Kitchen Gallery.
Maki McCarthy with Akabanaa Cairns Eisaa Group
Maki McCarthy with Akabanaa Cairns Eisaa Group Believing in the deep connection between art and well-being, Maki practices Reiki healing and creates pastel paintings using her fingers. Through art, she brings smiles, and shares the healing power of nature.
Maki is a member of Cairns Eisaa group in Queensland, Australia, and some members folded the hydrangea origami with Maki, and sent the prayer to the final art piece with a minute of silence.
makico.
makico. is an emerging artist based in Canberra, Australia who discovered her passion for art during the COVID-19 lockdown. What began as a mindful activity with her children quickly grew into a creative journey. She is a lifelong learner who enjoys acquiring new skills and expanding her knowledge. Her mission as a visual artist is to highlight the small joys and bring attention to important things that are hidden, overlooked, or often unnoticed in our daily lives. She hopes her artwork will bring a little bit of sunshine and add a sprinkle of happiness.
Mana Nowbar
Mana Nowbar is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brisbane, Australia. She is known for her work in painting, ceramics, and mural art, which often reflect individual experiences, themes of cultural identity, community, and historical events. Mana holds a master degree in visual art from Griffith University. She has lived and worked in Iran and the USA, and has participated in various community and cultural projects across Iran, Turkey, Tunisia, the USA, and Australia.
She has completed numerous mural projects for the Tehran subway and residential real estate and participated in international workshops and conferences, including the Tunisia International Project of Art and Architecture (IRCICA) in 2008, International Congress on civilization in Turkey 2014, IWSF-27th Iranian’s studies foundation conference in Maryland USA 2016. Currently, she is studying art therapy at The University of Tasmania.
Marcus Grandon
Marcus Grandon is a multimedia artist, writer, musician, researcher, and educator. He’s a teaching fellow at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, and a university instructor in Japan. His artwork has been exhibited internationally and is in private collections around the world. Marcus travels frequently and makes his home in Shizuoka City, Japan.
Margaret Rackemann
Margaret Rackemann has been involved with Japan for more than 35 years. She has lived and worked in Japan and has curated Australia-Japan related projects, programs, and exhibitions in both countries. She describes herself as a maker rather than an artist, and has worked with traditional Japanese Shibori, Sashiko, and Boro techniques for 10 years. Margaret is the immediate past president of the Australia Japan Society-Queensland and is a committee member of the National Federation of Australia Japan Societies.
Mari Suzuki
Mari Suzuki is a fourth-generation Japanese Australian whose parents and family members were born on Thursday Island in Queensland, Australia, and were interned at Tatura Interment Camp in Victoria during the war.
Martin Edmond
Martin Edmond is a writer. Born in Ohakune, New Zealand, after many years in Sydney, Australia, he now lives in Japan.
Masaki Baba
Masaki Baba is an actor, singer songwriter, author, and radio personality based in Taipei, Taiwan. After holding executive positions at The Japan Foundation in Beijing and in Sydney and at the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, Masaki now works as an actor across stage, film, and television, and appears weekly on Radio Taiwan International. He also writes film scores and performs as part of a trio – The Battery Band, also as a solo musician. Masaki facilitated the creation of artworks for the 12 Taiwanese civilians who died during internment for the When You Call My Name Project.
Masako Fukui
Masako Fukui is an independent audio producer and writer living and working on the Lands of the Cammeraygal people in Sydney, Australia. Born in India, she has lived in Japan and Australia.
Masako Kinoshita
Masako Kinoshita was born in Aichi Prefecture, Japan in 1973 to a Japanese father and Taiwanese mother. Masako moved to Taiwan after high school to pursue her studies, and graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at the National Taiwan Normal University. She has been based in Taipei ever since, continuing her artistic practice. She is drawn to the texture of oil paint and the traces left by layers built over time, having painted in oils since high school. Through her abstract landscape paintings, she seeks to express her belief that time in life is a gift, and hopes her works serve as mirrors, reflecting each viewer’s own sense of time.
Masako Ogawa
Masako Ogawa was born in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. She has been living in Australia for over 35 years. She currently works as a sessional tutor in translation and interpreting at Western Sydney University, and as a freelance translator and interpreter.
Mayu Kanamori
Mayu Kanamori is a Japanese Australian artist working across mediums of photography, video, performance, and poetry.
Mayumi Kamada
Mayumi Kamada is an Emeritus Professor at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business in Japan. She has worked for over 30 years as a university teacher and academic researcher in international relations, particularly Australian studies. She has published books on Australia-Japan relations, and her recent interest is in Japanese merchants and pearl divers who worked in northern Australia in the early 20th century.
Michael Jalaru Torres
Michael Jalaru Torres is an Indigenous fine art photographer and poet, born in 1976, in Broome, Western Australia. He is a Djugun-Yawuru man with tribal connections to the Gooniyandi / Jabbir Jabbir / Ngarluma peoples. He draws inspiration from the unique landscapes and people of the Kimberley region, which feature prominently in his work.
Michael Kenji Abe
Michael Kenji Abe is a third-generation or sansei Japanese Canadian from Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Michelle Belgiorno
Michelle Belgiorno is a Sydney based artist working across various media including painting, sculpture, and collaborative fabric-based installations. A long term interest as an artist is the culture of Japan, drawing on a 50-year engagement with Japanese language, society, and aesthetics. She has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows and is represented by Art Atrium Gallery. Her work is held by the Australian War Memorial, the Cowra Regional Art Gallery and in several private collections. Michelle is Chair of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, which supports individual artists and arts institutions.
Michiyo Miyake
Michiyo Miyake is a writer and translator, born in Japan and based in Australia. Since 2016, she has lived in Sydney and runs an independent press Uguisu Books. Her recent publications include a novel ‘Green Metal: Life in Tokyo during the Nuclear Catastrophe’ (2024) and ‘spiral history: TIDE’ (2023), a zine about the history of the islands where Australia’s detention centres are located, written in collaboration with the artist Haji Oh.
Nao Uda
Nao Uda is a visual artist who works in painting, photography, ceramics, and creative writing. Her work is about discovering untold family histories, including her own, through family photo albums and art. She was born in Japan, and her grandfather was a Japanese Canadian, who moved to Japan in 1941. After she received her BFA Photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2007, she has presented her artwork internationally in solo shows and has participated in artist residency programs in Japan, USA, Canada, and Taiwan. She completed her MFA at the National Tainan University of the Arts in 2019, and is currently based in both Taiwan and Japan.
Narelle Pigram
Narelle Pigram lives in Broome in Western Australia with her three children – Stella, Samson, and Atlas. They are fifth and sixth-generation Nikkei. Narelle’s great- grandmother’s family operated a laundry business in Broome until the outbreak of World War II. When the war began, the family were interned at Tatura Internment Camp 4. Although they felt confused, disappointed, and angry about their internment, they were grateful to have been kept together in one camp, knowing that many others were not as fortunate. In some cases, families were separated, with husbands and fathers sent to different camps.
Nastasia Shing
Nastasia Shing is a self taught artist, and a marine biologist based in Vanuatu. Her great-grandfather Nagamine Shinji was also interned in Australia during World War II, which explains her deep interest in the When You Call My Name Project.
Nat Koyama
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.
Natalie Hill
Natalie Hill is a mixed media artist based in Canberra, Australia. Natalie uses paint, collage, and various other materials to produce semi-abstracted works. Natalie mostly produces works based on her travels throughout the world, focusing on a feeling of place rather than a direct representation.
Neil Hamaguchi
Neil Hamaguchi lives in Broome, Western Australia and has worked both in the pearling industry and in land protection and heritage, cultivating a wealth of knowledge. His life reflects how Broome continues to balance progress with preservation, and how individuals can carry forward both cultural memory and environmental responsibility.
Neriya Arnasalon
Neriya Arnasalon is 8 years old and a student at primary school in Australia.
Nicole Henry
Nicole Henry is an emerging artist based on Ngunnawal Country in Canberra, Australia, who works in print based mediums, and began exhibiting in 2023. She has degrees in Philosophy and Art History from The Australian National University and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. She worked for over 30 years in government arts portfolios, and is currently completing studies in visual arts.
ON Marx
ON Marx, a Jack and Jill of all trades, and one half of the Los Angeles based Asian American art duo, The DisComfort Women, which would not have come into being were it not for the playful, freeing influence of artists such as the late Yong Soon Min and filmmakers such as the late Chick Strand.
Patrick Harrington
Patrick Harrington is a professor of linguistics at a university in Japan, and a part-time writer of fiction stories.
Peter Hourdequin
Peter Hourdequin is a professor of English at Tokoha University, in Shizuoka City, Japan. His research and teaching focus on ecolinguistics, sustainability, and cross-cultural understanding. In addition to his academic publications, Peter shares essays and photographs via his online newsletter, ‘Quiet Hills’ on Substack.
Philip Matsumoto
Philip Matsumoto was born in Broome in Western Australia and is the son of Kakio and Lena Matsumoto. When the family was interned at Tatura, he was just a year old. Philip is a respected community leader and long serving councillor for the Shire of Broome, a position he has held for nearly 30 years. An Elder of the Walman Yawuru Clan, he is deeply rooted in the cultural and civic life of the Broome community.
Rebecca Hausler
Rebecca Hausler holds a PhD from The University of Queensland, Australia. Her thesis analysed literary representations of the riot and escape attempt of Japanese prisoners of war, commonly referred to as the Cowra Breakout. Her publications include an article in the ‘Journal of Multilingualism’ on Inoue Hisashi’s depictions of linguistic imperialism in his 1977 novel ‘Kiiroi Nezumi’, and a chapter in the 2023 edited collection ‘Border-Crossing Japanese Literature’ analysed three novels depicting Japanese internees in Australia. She was an invited speaker at The Australian National University’s Japan Institute Seminar Series in 2021, was a visiting research fellow at Showa Women’s University in Tokyo in 2023, and an invited panellist at the University of British Columbia’s Rethinking Global Japanese Studies Symposium in 2024.
Ren Yano
Ren Yano is a Japanese calligraphy artist and permanent resident of Australia, who brings the elegance of traditional Japanese art to Sydney’s cultural landscape. Notably, he showcased his craft by composing a heartfelt message of support for the Australian team at the Australian Olympic Committee office during the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games. Ren has captivated his audiences at prestigious events such as Japan Expo, where he performs live demonstrations of large scale calligraphy, creating striking artworks with sweeping brushstrokes.
Riona Griffiths and Goro Griffiths
Riona Griffiths was born in Okinawa and grew up in Nakaima, Naha City, Japan. She moved to Australia in 2023, and now lives with her family and enjoys parenting. Goro is her son.
Rueben Lee-Chi
Rueben Lee-Chi was born in Broome, Western Australia, and has strong Indigenous ties to the Yawuru, Ngarluma and Bunuba nations. His family story reflects Broome’s rich multicultural history – both of his grandfathers came to the region to work in the pearling industry. One, originally from Beijing, China worked as a tender, while the other, from Wakayama Prefecture in Japan, was a respected head diver. Both men made significant contributions to the industry and were highly regarded in the community. Rueben carries forward their legacy, grounded in a deep connection to land, sea, and culture.
Ruth Fazakerley
Ruth Fazakerley lives in Adelaide, South Australia, only a few hours drive from the site of the former Loveday Internment Camp. In memory of Kanashiro, she travelled there to fly a kite and look at the sky. Trained as an artist, she has previously exhibited in Australia and the United Kingdom. She now works in higher education in a variety of roles. She has an academic interest in contemporary public art, memorialisation, and the relationship between history and memory.
Sachi Schofield
Sachi Schofield is from Okinawa, Japan and now lives in Sydney. She is a housewife.
Saku Sunakawa Family
Saku Sunakawa Family is living on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. Saku is from Miyakojima in Okinawa and her son’s name includes the character Ryu(琉）from the Ryukyu Kingdom, now Okinawa.
Salvatore Di Mauro
Salvatore Di Mauro‘s art and design approach is rooted in exploring and interpreting cultural values, focusing on historical significance and their relevance to contemporary life. He is dedicated to understanding the interconnectedness and influence of vernacular culture, objects, and the surrounding environment on society. His commitment to developing public art reflects his aim to create works connected to the history and culture of specific locations.
Professional highlights include Inner Landscapes, Hillbrook (2018); Kizuna or The Threads That Bond Us (2016); Transition, Hillbrook Brisbane (2014); Confluenza (A Celebration of Italian Migration), Brisbane (2013); Chiaroscuro, Sunshine Coast (2009); Childers Backpacker Memorial (2002); River Reflections, Innisfail (1998); References, Moji-ku, Japan (1997); Echoes and Foundations, Ingham (1995); Cross Cultural Connections touring exhibition, Japan (1994); Uniquely Ours, Touring Exhibition, Queensland (1987-1988).
Sara-Jane Seery
Sara-Jane Seery holds Bachelor degrees in Languages and International Business from The University of New England, Australia. She has worked in Japan as a co-ordinator of international relations for the JET Programme. She has continued studying Japanese translation and interpretation at The University of Queensland and contributed to the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in various official roles, including with Paralympics Australia. She is passionate about promoting Australia-Japan bilateral dimensions including accessibility, Indigenous studies (Ainu), sports diplomacy, war history, and the arts.
Satsuki Odamura
Satsuki Odamura is a master of the koto. A representative of the Koto Music Institute of Australia, Satsuki has pioneered the introduction of teaching and performing of this ancient Japanese instrument since her arrival in Australia. Satsuki has performed with critical success in Japan, Europe, former Soviet Union, USA, South-East Asia, and of course Australia.
Shannon Whiley
Shannon Whiley is an Australia-Japan relations specialist and independent researcher. She has worked in Japanese government agencies promoting ties and supporting local communities for a decade, and is currently based in Osaka, Japan. Her research on Nikkei Australian soldiers was published in ‘New Voices in Japanese Studies’.
Sherri Shiosaki-Gibson
Sherri Shiosaki-Gibson is a fourth-generation Nikkei who now lives in Geraldton, Western Australia and frequently travels to Broome to spend time with her family. Sherri grew up surrounded by stories of resilience as her mother and grandparents were interned at Tatura Internment Camp 4 during World War II. As a child, she would listen intently to her grandmother and extended family recount their experiences. Despite the hardship of captivity, they shared memories filled with humour, strength, and remarkable endurance. Sherri continues to marvel at their ability to find light, even in the darkest moments.
Shi-Chi Mike Lan
Shi-chi Mike Lan is an associate professor at the Department of History at the National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Previously, he taught at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and held visiting positions at University of Tokyo, Rikkyo University, and University of Kyoto in Japan. His research interests include Modern East Asian History, World War II, historical memory, and history of migration. He also served as history consultant on projects related to World War II, including the award-winning documentary ‘From Island to Island’ 由島至島 (Director Lau Kek Huat, 2024).
Shigemi Nakamura-Simms
Shigemi Nakamura-Simms constantly drew pictures from a young age. After overcoming her parents’ objections, she went to a high school specialising in arts and studied graphics at an art college. After graduation, she worked for eight years as an editorial designer at Magazine House in Japan, first for ‘Brutus’ and then for ‘Olive’. Unable to give up her childhood dream, she moved to the United Kingdom to study fine art again. She moved to Australia when she married and was busy raising her children, but now that they are grown, she continues to pursue her arts practice, while working as a graphic designer.
Shihoko Kuhara
Shihoko Kuhara was born in Sydney, Australia in 2011. Her Japanese mother had lived in Australia for 20 years and father for 10 years by the time Shihoko was born. When Shihoko was 18 months old, her family moved back to Japan and they now live in Ishikawa Prefecture, where Mr Tankichi Nabeshima was born. She has been back to Sydney a couple of times since, and plans to return again soon. Shihoko is a passionate ballet dancer, piano player, and a practitioner of kado, also known as ikebana, which is Japanese flower arrangement.
Shingo Usami
Shingo Usami is a Sydney based Japanese actor who has worked extensively in theatre, film, TV, and voiceover in Australia since 1998. His recent TV and film credits include the American network AMC’s TV series ‘The Terror: Infamy’, and Apple TV’s ‘Invasion’. Other film and TV credits include ‘Unbroken’, ‘Paper Planes’, ‘Emperor’, ‘Red Dog’, ‘Broken Sun’, ‘The Pacific’, and ‘Curtin’. His theatre credits include ‘Twelfth Night’, ‘Measure for Measure’, ‘Servant of Two Masters’, ‘The Floating World’, ‘Coup d’Etat’, ‘Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes’, and the Australian tour of ‘Miss Saigon’ 2007/2008. In 2023, he co-directed and acted in the iconic Japanese play ‘The Face of Jizo’ by Hisashi Inoue, for which he received a nomination for the Sydney Theatre Awards and Time Out Arts and Culture Awards.
Shoko Ono
Shoko Ono lives and works in Sydney as the Manager of Australian Network for Japanese as Community Language and a teacher at universities and Japan Foundation, Sydney.
Shu-ting Jhang
Shu-Ting Jhang is a Taiwanese artist / teacher and visual artist, specialising in printmaking and graphic arts. She holds a certified secondary school art teaching licence in Taiwan. For many years, Jhang has been dedicated to art education beyond traditional institutions, such as hospital wards, creative ageing programs, senior care environments, with disadvantaged children, and museum based children / family art education extension. With a background in both visual art and pedagogy of art, she also has experience in participatory art, socially engaged art, and social prescribing projects in Taiwan.
Sioe-Lian Kang（江秀蓮）
Sioe-Lian Kang（江秀蓮) is an amateur fabric artist, and creates outstanding works by combining various textiles, often under highly limited conditions. Born in an internment camp in Australia, she has been passionate about art since childhood, continuously nurturing her creative interests throughout her life.
Sophie Constable
Sophie Constable is an artist, scientist, researcher, and educator at The Australian National University in Canberra.
Sophie Shao-Yu Leu
Sophie Shao-Yu Leu is a Taiwanese illustrator and interdisciplinary researcher whose work moves at the confluence of art, memory, and feminist thought. Based in Taipei, Taiwan, she weaves personal narrative, collective history, and everyday textures into visual forms that invite reflection, dialogue, and quiet acts of resistance. Trained in visual arts and humanities education, Sophie works across traditional and digital media, blending illustrative tenderness with research driven inquiry. Her projects often explore themes of care, resilience, and the gendered body, asking how art can become both testimony and bridge. Through exhibitions, educational programs, and collaborative practices, she fosters inclusive spaces where critical and affective knowledge meet. Her ongoing explorations imagine illustration as a feminist pedagogy – an embodied method for nurturing relational ties, restoring erased stories, and making knowledge feel-able within and beyond institutional frames.
Sophie Steains
Sophie Steains is a clinical psychologist who was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. Her mother immigrated to Sydney from Ginowan City, Okinawa in 1976.
Sue Pedley
Sue Pedley is recognised for her multimedia installations, large drawings and collaborations. These works explore colonisation, including her family history as convict settlers in Tasmania, Australia; the environmental degradation of water and its impact; and the intergenerational hurts of war.
She has a history of making artwork in Japan, participating in the Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial (2006, 2018) and Setouchi Triennial (2010), working closely with rural communities.
Further important artworks respond to Australia’s military and trading histories with Japan. In 2017 Sue was commissioned by Mosman Art Gallery to create a work in the T5 Camouflage Fuel Tank, marking 75 years since the World War II Japanese invasion of Sydney Harbour.
Other significant exhibitions include: ‘Photography: Real and Imagined’, National Gallery of Victoria (2023); ‘Line Work: Rivers in the Basin’ with Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Penrith Regional Gallery, Sydney (2021); ‘Patches of Light’, with Peggy Pedley, Queen Victoria Art Museum and Gallery, Tasmania (2019); ‘Tracing Water’, with Iwaki Kazuya, Echigo Tsumari Museum, Japan (2018); ‘Blue Jay Way’, Heide Museum of Contemporary Art and Penrith Regional Gallery (2007).
Australia Council residencies include Vietnam (2008), London (1993), France and Germany (1985); and an Asia Link residency in Sri Lanka (2001). Other residencies are Tebajima, Tokushima, Japan (2024); Bundanon Trust, NSW (2016); Tokyo Wonder Site (2012); Redgate Studio Residency, Beijing (2011); and Banff Art Centre, Canada (2007).
Sun Yung Shin 신 선 영
신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin is a multi-genre author and editor of 13 books, most recently ‘Six Tones of Water’ co-written with Vi Khi Nao and ‘The Wet Hex’ from Coffee House Press. Her forthcoming books include the picture book ‘Revolutions Are Made of Love: The Story of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs’, ‘Heart Eater: A Memoir of Immigration, Belonging, and How We Find Ourselves in Language’, and ‘Asian American Histories of the United States for Young People’. Her work has been featured in POETRY, BOMB, the 13th Gwangju Biennale, and elsewhere.
Susan Dowell
Susan Dowell has lived in Melbourne, Australia most of her life, but now lives in a small village in northern New South Wales. She holds a Bachelor of Sociology and Indonesian from Victoria University and an Associate Diploma in Business Accounting from RMIT. Her career has been varied – the last 19 years were in manufacturing, and 10 as administration manager.
Susan Laura Sullivan
Susan Laura Sullivan is co-editor of ‘Women of a Certain Age’ (2018). Her photography featured in Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s ‘Plan B Audio’ (2020) and ‘Moon Alignments’ (2023). Her work most recently was performed at Imagikon, Shizuoka, 2025. She lives and works in Japan.
Taka Takiguchi
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.
Takeshi Tsuji
Takeshi Tsuji is originally from Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan. After graduating from high school in 1995, he came to Australia as a student. Later he was able to settle permanently and is now living in Perth. He has lived in three other cities: Wollongong, Adelaide, and Sydney.
Tim Newfields
Tim Newfields was born in the USA in 1955 and has lived in Japan since 1983. After teaching English at several universities in Japan, he retired in 2024 and currently lives in Shizuoka, Japan.
Timothy Steains
Timothy Kazuo Steains is a mixed-race Okinawan Australian. He has conducted research in Asian Australian and mixed-race studies, as well as studies of masculinities. He works in Aboriginal policy.
Tomoko (Irlean) Matsumoto
Tomoko (Irlean) Matsumoto lives in Broome, Australia. She was just 4 years old when her family was interned at Tatura Internment Camp in Victoria. Tomoko’s story is a poignant reminder of how war and racial policies disrupted the lives of so many. Stories like hers remind us not just of hardship, but of the human capacity for endurance, community, and hope.
Tomoko Stipproweit
Tomoko Stipproweit migrated to Sydney, Australia in 2000 from Yokohama, Japan. She originally worked as a travel consultant and now works as an interpreter. In the past she thought that if she could not live overseas, she would move to Okinawa because of her love for its beautiful culture and energetic people.
Tomoko Tamada
Tomoko Tamada is an architect who lives in Tokyo, Japan. She loves people, the countryside, handicrafts, dogs, and other living creatures. Her hobby is reading books. She is always impressed by people who make an era, and her curiosity goes endlessly towards the beginning of time.
Trane DeVore
Trane DeVore is originally from California, USA where he studied literature at Sonoma State University and UC Berkeley. He moved to Japan in 2005 and currently teaches at the University of Nagano. He has published two books of poetry – ‘series/mnemonic’ and ‘Dust Habit’ – and his writing has appeared in numerous other publications.
Trinity Kuichun Cheng Lai (鄭圭君)
Trinity Kuichun Cheng Lai (鄭圭君) is an artist whose work explores identity, culture, and emotion through sculpture and painting. Born in Ecuador to a Taiwanese migrant family, she grew up navigating the complexities of belonging to two distinct cultures. This experience shapes her creative process, where themes of identity and cultural intersection take centre stage. Drawing inspiration from nature, childhood memories, and everyday photography, her art reflects the fluidity of cultural exchange. Her practice combines discipline with spontaneity, aiming to connect diverse cultural narratives and provoke introspection through visual storytelling.
Tzu Hsuan Yang
Tzu Hsuan Yang’s practice centres his memory and human connection across cultural boundaries. In one work, he returned to a red light district in Taipei, Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic, using pre-pandemic photos to explore how crisis reshapes memory. Another piece retraced his grandfather’s World War II service in the Japanese military. He aims to explore how memory shifts across time and place.
Tzu-Ling Wang
Tzu-Ling Wang specialises in art education and special education, and has a passion for film photography. Through her lens, she aims to capture the workings of the world, using image as a medium to document and narrate unfolding events within society.
Vera Mackie
Vera Mackie is Emeritus Professor at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. In addition to her writings on gender relations and the history of feminism in Japan, she co-edited (with Paul Jones) ‘Relationships: Japan and Australia 1870s–1950s’ (2001).
Wan-Yu Lin（林婉瑜）
Wan-Yu Lin（林婉瑜) is a cultural worker and educator at a community college in Sanchong District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. Her research focuses on jasmine tea production in northern Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period, highlighting the region’s cultural and historical heritage.
WONG Ching Yee (Jenny)
WONG Ching Yee (Jenny) is a Hong Kong born art worker based in Sydney, Australia. Having spent extensive periods living, studying, and working in culturally diverse environments, Jenny is deeply interested in transcultural and multi-layered narratives mediated through materiality and tactile experiences. Her practice is grounded in clay – processing, expressing, and archiving her thoughts and emotions of the time. Through art, she invites dialogues, connects with natural and built environments.
Yasue Taggart
Yasue Taggart is originally from Nago City in Okinawa, Japan and moved to Sydney, Australia in 2013 to marry her Australian husband, John. She is president of the Sydney Okinawan Club and founder of Eisa Champ Roo (Sydney Okinawa Drum Dance group).
Yi-Jiun Wang
Yi-Jiun Wang is an artist, a creator devoted to memory and emotional storytelling, with a deep interest in the intersections of family history, local culture, and intergenerational experience. From an early age, he found great joy in drawing – pencil and paper became his first tools for observing the world and expressing emotion. Over time, this early passion evolved into a deeper creative practice, serving as a way to engage with the past, connect with family, and respond to the present.
Yin-Ting Kang
Yin-Ting Kang’s official job title is Mandarin teacher, but she yearns to be an artist. Because she has not received professional training in art, she often considers herself more of an art enthusiast. She is also practising screenwriting. After being exposed to participatory art, she discovered that art can take various gentle forms that allow people to engage, and that she can facilitate understanding on her own. Additionally, she is deeply fascinated by Taiwanese history, and hopes to tell the stories of Taiwan’s history well.
Yori Hirokawa
Yori Hirokawa is a Japanese nature photographer, graphic designer, and travel writer. She migrated from Tokyo, Japan to Sydney, Australia in 2008 and currently works for a packaging design company as an arts worker for Microsoft products. Yori’s photograph of the Sydney Opera House won a prize in the All Nippon Airways (ANA) photo competition in 2019, and was selected for the ANA official calendar. In 2022, her works were selected and featured in the Australia Photography Magazine’s Photographer of the Year competition in both Animals and Nature and Black and White categories. Yori’s solo exhibitions include the ‘Soul Cleansing Time’ (2021) and ‘Soul Cleansing Time II – Life in resonance’ (2024). She has also produced photo books.
Yoshi Kosaka
Yoshi Kosaka is an anthropologist exploring the legacies of war and its aftermath across the Pacific Islands, Australia, and Japan.
Yoshiki Tamashiro and Emily Kaneko
Yoshiki Tamashiro and Emily Kaneko moved from Japan together to the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia in 2018. Emily is from Miyazaki and Yoshiki is from Okinawa. Emily is studying graphic design as a hobby, while Yoshiki teaches IT at a school.
Yoshiko Ito and Takuya Ito
Yoshiko Ito and Takuya Ito are a mother and son team. Japanese born and based in Sydney, Australia, they have a long standing relationship with the people of Cowra where the Japanese Cemetery is situated. Yoshiko is a visual artist, metalsmith, and origamist. Takuya is a digital and screen based artist and animator.
Yuriko Nagata
Yuriko Nagata is a researcher and the author of ‘Unwanted aliens: Japanese internment in Australia‘. Her research interests include the Japanese diaspora in Australia and the Pacific, as well as cultural studies in Japanese language education. Yuriko has contributed her expertise, offered guidance, and provided archival materials related to the experiences of internees to this project
Yvonne Ishiguchi
Yvonne Ishiguchi has lived in Broome all her life. She is the proud granddaughter of Noboru Ishiguchi, an internee who was tragically deported after the war. Yvonne’s story carries the weight of both resilience and deep cultural memory.
Zorica Purlija
Zorica Purlija migrated from Montenegro to Australia when she was 8 years old, and is currently based in Sydney. Graduating with Distinction, Zorica has an Associate Diploma in graphic design and photography from Western Sydney University and has completed a Master of Arts in photo media at the UNSW School of Art and Design. She continues to exhibit widely and her public profile continues to build, including internationally, with exhibitions in Manhattan, Zurich, and Venice. She has been a finalist in the Head On Photo Awards, the Wyndham Art Prize, the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, and the Gosford Art Prize.