mayu kanamori

The Heart of the Journey is a multimedia sound and slide show of over three hundred fifty still photographs with digitally recorded and mixed interviews and music as well as a live performance component. The show moves in a linear fashion telling the true story of Lucy Dann's personal journey.

Lucy Dann was born in Broome Western Australia and grew up thinking she was aboriginal. In her twenties Lucy discovered her biological father was a Japanese man who had worked in Broome's pearling industry & returned to Japan shortly after her birth.

We meet Mayu a Japanese born photographer. Lucy is now forty years old she & Mayu form a friendship & together they decide to journey to Japan to try to find the other half of Lucy's roots the Japanese father who had nursed her proudly when she was still a baby.

It is Lucy's first time out of Australia. Mayu records the journey as they travel via Hong Kong to the neon lit streets of Tokyo on a bullet train & in Taiji the small fishing village in western Japan that is her father's home. Through Mayu's translation and mediation Lucy hopes to negotiate her way to meeting with her Japanese family.

The Heart of the Journey has universal themes of families friendship mediation and our search for self identity. It is a heart warming story about Japariginal multiculturalism and reconciliation on a personal level viewed and spoken from the hearts of Lucy and the other ordinary people who helped Lucy to follow her dream.