Yasukichi Murakami Life Story

Yasukichi Murakami （１８８０−１９４４）Life Story：Through the photographs sent to his mother at home, an exhibition curated by Professor Mutsumi Tsuda (Photographer / Professor, Seian University of Art and Design) at the Wakayama University’s Institute of Kishu Economic and Cultural History Library was an important milestone in the history of Japanese migration to Australia. The exhibition showcased many original prints from the Yasuko Murakami – Minami Collection, which are Yasukichi Murakami’s photographs from Australia, which he had sent to his mother in Japan.

In 1970 when his daughter Yasuko Pearl Minami Murakami moved to Tanami, Yasukichi’s hometown in Wakayama Prefecture, she gathered these photographs, which were scattered amongst their extended family, and secured them in her care until this day. This exhibition is the first time Murakami’s photographs were exhibited in Japan.

Front: Yasukichi Murakami Life Story, exhibiton curated by Mutsumi Tsuda

Back: Yasukichi Murakami Life Story, exhibiton curated by Mutsumi Tsuda

Along with the photographs were other highly personal exhibits including Murakami’s children’s school records, letters he had written to his mother and a moving art video filmed by Tsuda of Murakami’s son, Joseph Kisaburo Murakami looking at his father’s photographs, reflecting, and speaking to Tsuda, and in effect, to himself and the viewers of the video.

The opening of the exhibition was  in conjunction with the 2016 Australian Studies Association Conference held at the Wakayama University. Murakami was born in Tanami, Wakayama Prefecture. Included in the program was a seminar by Dr Yuriko Nagata from University of Queensland about Yasukichi Murakami and other Nikkei Australians.

Joseph Kisaburo Murakami on video by Mutsumi Tsuda, Julie Murakami (left) and Ruruka (Reiko) Minami (right) at the exhibition opening. Photo by Mayu Kanamori

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visitors at Yasukichi Murakami Life Story, exhibition curated by Mutsumi Tsuda. Photo by Mayu Kanamori

Yasukichi Murakami Life Story, exhibits. Photo by Mayu Kanamori

Yasukichi Murakami Life Story, exhibits. Photo by Mayu Kanamori

(Left to Right) Ruruka (Reiko) Minami, Julie Murakami and Mutsumi Tsuda. Photo by Mayu Kanamori

Seminar by Dr Yuriko Nagata. Photo by Mayu Kanamori

(Left to Right) Ruruka (Reiko) Minami, Julie Murakami, Mutsumi Tsuda, and Mayu Kanamori next to a portrait of Yasukichi Murakami at the Yasukichi Murakami Life Story. Photo by Simon Wearne.

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OzAsia Festival – Adelaide

9 & 10 September 2014 7:30pm Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre

My date on Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens was beautiful Jacinta Thompson, former Artistic Director of OzAsia Festival. We met in the Space Theatre foyer with a heartfelt embrace. Many Asian Australian artists have developed their careers because of Jacinta’s vision and long-term curatorial commitment in nurturing the growth of an artist like myself. OzAsia Festival not only brings to Australian audiences art from Asia, but has actively invested in the Asian stories within Australia. The importance of their longer term curatorial vision must be congratulated and held in reverence.

Working with the professional people and facility at the Adelaide Festival Centre along with the excellent OzAsia team with current Artistic Director Joe Mitchell, our show excelled, bringing in many favourable reviews. We were blessed with great publicists throughout our Darwin, Broome and Adelaide tours, and have received much publicity, which is of course excellent for the show itself, but in the wider sense, we have been able to add to the legacy of Yasukichi Murakami and to rekindle the memory of the pre war Japanese contribution to Australia.

Reviews

Realtime: 8th OzAsia Festival 2014 Culture’s haunted houses by Ben Brooker

Realtime: 2014 Darwin Festival, Cultural syntheses: north-south, east-west by Nicola Fearn

BWW Review: OzAsia Festival 2014; Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens Captivates and Informs by Barry Lenny 

The Clothesline: Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens: An Enchanting Photographic Journey Betwden Past and Present by Michael Coghlan

The Advertiser: OzAsia migration lay Through a Distant Lens puts Japan in focus by Louise Nunn

In Daily: Murakami: a life lost and rediscovered by Gregg Elliott

Glamadelaide: OzAsia Theatre Review: Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens

Selected Media Links

ABC Radio National Arts & Books Daily: Yasukichi Murakami: the photographer who captured Darwin by Georgia Moodie. Presented by Michael Cathcart

ABC Radio National Music Show: Yasukichi Murakami. Presented by Andrew Ford. Produced by Maureen Cooney / Jennifer Mills

ABC Radio National Drive: A Japanese-Australian photographer in pre-WW2 Darwin. Presented by Waleed Aly. Produced by Hélène Hofman

ABC News: Japanese photographer, pearling pioneer Yasukichi Murakami honoured in Broome

-Posted by Mayu Kanamori

 

 

 

References: Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens

Yasukichi Murakami

Bain, M. (1982). Full Fathom Five. 1st ed. Perth: Artlook Books.

Beaumont, J., O’Brien, I. and Trinca, M. (2008). Under suspicion. 1st ed. Canberra, A.C.T.: National Museum of Australia Press.

Caudle, R. (1979). Caudle, Rex Oral History Transcript. [Manuscript] NTRS 226 TS  26. 1979. Northern Territory Archives Service, Darwin, NT, Australia.

City of Darwin, (2001). A Secondary School Resource on the Bombing of Darwin. Darwin: Federation Frontline, pp.54 – 55.

Hamaguchi, P. (2013). Interview with Pearl Hamaguchi. Broome.

Jones, N. (2002). Number Two Home: A story of Japanese Pioneers in Australia 1st ed. Fremantle, W.A.: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

Kaino, L. (2011). ˜Broome culture” and its historical links to the Japanese in the pearling industry. Continuum, 25(4), pp.479–490.

Kaino, L. (2013). On-Board train Australia: Some contest of the works of Kanamori and Murakami. Zeistschrift fur Australierstudien, (Issue 27), pp.pp 105 – 125.

Kilgariff, F. and Carment, D. et al (2008). MURAKAMI, YASUKICHI (1880-1944). In: Northern Territory Dictionary of Biographies, 2nd ed. Darwin: Charles Darwin University Press.

Lance, K. (2004). Redbill: From Pearls to Peace – Life in Times of A Remarkable Lugger 1st ed. North Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

Minami, Y. (2013). Interview with Yasuko Pearl Murakami Minami. Tanami.

Murakami Shigeno Theresa (and Yasukichi). (2014). [Manuscripts, letters, historical documents. Electronic document] A367 – c68988 National Archives of Australia. Canberra.

Murakami, J. (Dec 2011, Aug 2012 and Feb 2013). Interviews with Joseph Murakami. Tsunashima.

Murakami, J. (April 2012 and April 2013). Interviews with Julie Murakami. Darwin.

Murakami, K. (1979). Kathleen Murakami Oral History Transcript. [Manuscript] NTRS 226 TS  95. Northern Territory Archives Service. Darwin.

Murakami, P. (1979). Peter Murakami Oral History Transcript. [Manuscript] NTRS 226 TS 96 Northern Territory Archives Service. Darwin.

Murakami, Y. (1926). Application for Letters Patent for an invention, Improved diving dress. [Manuscript and diagrams] A627 – 4150944 National Archives of Australia. Canberra.

Murakami, Y. (1926). Application for Letters Patent for an invention, Improved diving dress. [Documents and diagrams. Electronic document] A267 – 1525/1926 National Archives of Australia , Canberra.

Murakami, Y. (1926). Application for Letters Patent for an invention, Improvements in diving dress. [Manuscript and diagrams] A627 – 4215206  National Archives of Australia. Canberra.

Murakami, Y. (1926-7). Application for Letters Patent for an invention, Improved diving dress [Manuscript and diagrams] A627 – 4216044 National Archives of Australia. Canberra.

Murakami, Y. (1927). Application for Letters Patent for an invention, Improvements in and relating to diving dresses. [Manuscript and diagrams] A627 – 4215757 National Archives of Australia. Canberra.

Murakami, Y. (circa 1988 – 1944). Handwritten text on back of original photographic prints, various. [Photographic prints, back].

Nagata, Y. (1996). Unwanted Aliens: Japanese Internment in Australia During WWII. 1st ed. St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press.

No 10 of 1918, Yasukichi Murakami [bankruptcy]. (1918). [Manuscripts, transcripts, letters, ledgers. Electronic document] PP92/1 – 12038022 Australian National Archives . Perth.

Norman, J. (May 2013). Interview with John Norman. Broome.

Prisoner of War/Internee: Murakami, Yasukichi; Date of birth – 19 December 1880; Nationality – Japanese. (n.d.). [Electronic document] MP1103/1 DJ18100 National Archives of Australia. Canberra.

Prisoner of War/Internee; Murakami, Yasukichi; Year of birth – 1880; Nationality – Japanese. (n.d.).[Electronic document] MP1103/2 DJ18100 National Archives of Australia. Canberra.

Sack, E. (1979). Eve Sack Oral History Transcript. [Manuscript] NTRS 226 TS 114 Northern Territory Archives Service. Darwin.

Scott, T. (1979). Thomas Connor Scott Oral History Transcript. [Manuscript] NTRS 226 TS 616 Northern Territory Archives Service. Darwin.

Shigematsu, S. (2007). Research Note on Pearling and Japanese Contribution to Local Society in early 20th century Australia. The Otemon Journal of Australian Studies, 33, pp.91- 100

Sissons, D. (2014). Murakami, Yasukichi (1880 – 1944). In: Australian Dictionary of Biographies, 18th ed. [online] Carlton: Melbourne University Press.

Photography

Barthes, R. (1981). Camera Lucida. 1st ed. New York: Hill and Wang.

McAuley, G. (2008). Photography and Live Performance: Introduction. Still / Moving: Photography and Live Performance, About Performance, No 8, pp.7-13.

Benjamin, Walter (1936). 1999.  The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Illuminations. London: Random House

Nietzsche, F. (1872).  1995. The Birth of Tragedy. New York: Dover Publications.

Ritchin, F. (2009). After Photography. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton.

Sontag, S. (1977). On Photography. 1979. Middlesex: Penguin Books.

Photographs used in the production of Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens are a courtesy of:

Australian War Memorial – ID 052384 & 052460 Photo by James Tait, Tatura Victoria

Bielby, Margo Photographic Archive

Broome Historical Society of Joseph Kisaburo Murakami Photographic Archives

Darwin Rondalla Archives

Gruchy, Mic Photography and Archives

Hamaguchi, Pearl Family Archives

Hang, Ted and Eunice Family Archives

Jones, Noreen Photographic Collection of Mise & Yamamoto Photographic Archives

Kanamori, Mayu Photography and Archives

Lance, Kate Photographic Collection

Murakami, Joseph Kisaburo Family Archives

Murakami, Julie Family Archives

Murakami, Yasuko Pearl Family Archives

National Archives of Australia –  A446  – 7648980 Kathleen Murakami

National Museum of Australia –  Book cover of Under Suspicion: Citizenship and Internment in Australia during the Second World War,  ISBN 9781876944605 

Northern Territory Library – Commemoration PH0200/0380 Mayse Young Collection; Cavenagh Street in the 1930’s / V. Fletcher, Harold Snell Collection; Bi-plane PH0282/0039 Unknown Collection; Rally PH0283/0012 Bill Allcorn Collection; Group PH0323/0014 D. Smith Collection; Float in street parade, Darwin circa late 1930s PH0340/0038 Jarvis Collection; Old Town Hall on Smith Street PH0386/0150 Bill Littlejohn Collection; Afternoon drink PH0444/0006 Bill & Betty Eacott Collection; Couple PH0375/0008 Marella Collection; The Residency PH0223/0005 J. Towers Collection; Serviceman PH0285/0053 Photo by Y. Murakami, Frank Blackwell Collection; and Divers on pearling lugger D36 PH0238/0174 Peter Spillett Collection

Other photographs from Northern Territory Library duplicate and supplied from Murakami family archives directly – Five men and a lady sitting in a car PH0096/0026 Fay Kilgariff Collection; Dampier Hotel PH0096/0024 Fay Kilgariff Collection; Mrs Theresa Murakami and Mr Yasukichi Murakami PH0096/0020 Fay Kilgariff Collection; Family PH0096/0019 Fay Kilgariff Collection; Man sitting in drivers seat of a car PH0096/0025 Fay Kilgariff Collection;  and A Japanese woman in Japanese dress PH0096/0017 Fay Kilgariff Collection.

Tsuda, Mutsumi Photography, Photographic Collection and Archives

Puertollano / Masuda, Cauline Family Archives

Sisters of St John of God Photographic Collection of Jones, Noreen Photographic Collection of Mise & Yamamoto Photographic Archives

All appropriate documents and photographs found for the research pertaining to Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens, used or other wise in the final production have been donated to Julie Murakami (Yasukichi’s great grand daughter / Murakami family historian) and Broome Historical Society / Museum.

– Posted by Mayu Kanamori

DNA and RNA: what and how of a role of artist and of being human

When I saw Kevin Murakami in Broome, my heart felt like it had stopped for a moment. The shock of seeing him took me to a place I had not prepared for. There was Yasukichi Murakami walking out of his car, I thought, approaching me to say hello.

Kevin Murakami, Broome, 2013 Photo by Mayu Kanamori

This man of course wasn’t Yasukichi Murakami nor his ghost, but his great grandson, who travelled from Fitzroy Crossing to see me during my stay in Broome. He heard me give an interview with ABC Kimberley about my search for Yasukichi Murakami’s life and work, and contacted me.

I was working with my friend Sarah Yu in Broome on another project: Jetty-to-Jetty, a heritage walking trail of Broome’s foreshore commissioned by Nymaba Buru Yawuru. My specific task was to interview members of old families of Broome in connection to places and their relationships with one another; then create audio files of stories with multiple voices, which tourists could listen to via a phone app whilst walking from the Streeter’s Jetty where hte pearl luggers used to operate from and the site of  Broome’s old Jetty, where the Town Beach is today. They are families and places Yasukichi Murakami would have had intimate knowledge of. After all, he lived in Broome for 35 years of his life. Once again, my work connects past with present and present with future through people, stories, relationships, place and space.

Kevin had driven 400 kms to just to see me. More precisely, he had come to connect with his great grandfather Yasukichi Murakami so that he can then pass on this connection to his two daughters in Perth. He came so I can give him his ancestral family photographs that I have been collecting and digitizing whilst traveling between Sydney, Perth, Darwin, Broome, Tokyo, Yokohama and Tanami in Japan for my Murakami project.

To make my art, I travel many kilometers to ask others to assist me, to receive from them information I need to carry out my work. This time, however, it was Kevin who travelled to receive information that he needed, and he in turn will pass this information on to his children.

Yasukichi Murakami, self portrait, by Yasukichi Murakami, 1905, Broome. Courtesy, Murakami Family Archives.

I felt as if this exchange touched upon something very mysterious and significant. It was as if I was given  some sort of a hint about how our creative practice, no matter how small it may be in the great scheme of things, is an important part of the whole. That this project is not only about Yasukichi Murakami nor just about my research nor about my art. That in so far as we are alive, there are things we are meant to do for something much bigger than us.

Kevin’s facial and physical features, so similar to what I have seen of Yasukichi Murakami through his self portraits reinforces these insights of being part of a continuum, in this particular case, the Murakami DNA. So then I begin not only to wonder about the role of DNA, but also the role of RNA in the scheme of things.

I remember studying biology in school. The DNA is said to be a molecule that encodes the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and  the RNA performs multiple roles in the coding, decoding, regulation, and expression of genes. I am not a scientist, but I think simply put DNA tells a cell what to do and  RNA carries this information for it to happen… or something similar.

Hm….

So then what and how is my role as an artist? As a human being?

-Posted by Mayu Kanamori

Listen to the ABC Kimberley interview here: http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2013/05/20/3762857.htm?site=kimberley

Yasukichi Murakami’s Diving Suit Part 1

“He was not a man who was taken in by the modern cameras of that time like the Leica or 35mm. He considered that to be toys,” is how Joe Kisaburo Clement Murakami remembers his father’s ways with the camera. I think of the changes in cameras these days with smart phones and apps, and wonder if my carrying around my digital SLR is similar to Yasukichi Murakami’s insistence on being a “ big camera man. Big format”.

I met Joe in his apartment in Tsunashima, a suburb near Yokohama. Joe was born in Australia, and one of the few pre war Japanese allowed to stay in Australia after he was released from internment with his family during WW2 as an enemy alien. He went to Japan in the 1960’s to learn Japanese, and later found work as a translator for a Japanese company and for books such as Letters from the End of the World: A Firsthand Account of the Bombing of Hiroshima.

Joe Murakami as a child in Broome. Photo by Yasukichi Murakami. Joe Murakami today. Photo by Mayu Kanamori

Joe Murakami was born in 1927, around the time when Yasukichi was putting his final improvements to his diving suit design, which he had first patented in 1926. Joe was keen to tell me about his father’s invention.

“I think I used to be a pretty inquisitive boy so I used to ask him all sorts of questions. Even when I was six or seven. And he would give me always some sort of answer. Later I found interest in his diving dress. He told me that the crux of his invention was the regulator that regulated the breathe according to the depth of the diver without the diver having to have to manipulate any valves. That I remember.”

In Broome where Murakami had lived since 1900, many men, including his brother-in-law Masutaro Asari, who travelled with Murakami to Australia in 1897, have died diving for pearls in old-fashioned diving suits. For many years Yasukichi Murakami continued experiments to create a safer diving suit.

Murakami’s improved diving suit design patented the year Joe was born, and he was invited by Heinke, manufacturers of the traditional diving dress to visit London to develop a prototype of his design, but for some reason, did not go. Some say it was because he wanted to stay with his family. Some say it was because his friend and business partner Captain A.C. Gregory did not want Murakami to leave his side.

Murakami’s patent fell due for renewal whist he was interned during the war and he was not able to renew it. In 1943, a French engineer Émile Gagnan patented scuba apparatus with identical mechanisms to that of Murakami’s.

I remember Murakami’s attempt at Australia’s first cultured pearl farm with Captain Gregory and how the authorities had closed it down. Joe said that Johnny Chi Snr in Broome told him that he remembers seeing a successful cultured pearl from Murakami’s failed pearl farm. That makes two inventions in Australia by Yasukichi Murakami, unattributed to his genius due to “course” of history. Perhaps this blog and project can contribute to the flow of history in a fairer way – here and now.

Continued.

-Posted by Mayu Kanamori

The intuition

How do I tell the difference between Eki’s photographs and Murakami’s? Luckily for me, Noreen Jones, the author of No 2 Home was back in town.

Without delay I saw her in her son’s home in Broome. No 2 Home has been for me one of the most inspirational books written in the last ten years. I have read and re-read chapters of her book like a bible, taking notes and making use of the valuable information she has shared with us all. I had so many questions for her:

Who was H. Wada, the photographer who has left many photographs in the Mise Photographic Collection, which is held by Jones. Does she mind if I exhibited my photographs alongside the photographs in her collections? Who were the other five Japanese photographers she mentions in her book? Is one of them Eki? Is Wada the other? In the Jones’ National Archives collection, there is a copy of the certificate exempting Hichijiro Wada from the dictation test. Is this the same H. Wada?

How do I tell the difference between Eki’s photographs and Murakami’s?

Of course no one can know, but perhaps it is possible to know intuitively. As a photographer I know this is possible. I want to learn more.

– Posted by Mayu Kanamori

Kennedy Hill

“Mr Murakami was the second best photographer Broome has ever had,” John E deB Norman, the co-author with Verity Norman of A Pearling Master’s Journey: in the wake of the Schooner Mistsaid on the phone. In his opinion Eki, the wife of Takazo (Tomasi) Nishioka was Broome’s best photographer ever. ” But Mr Murakami was the better with indoor photography and in particular group and solo studio portraits at which he excelled.”

So provocative was this thought – a woman photographer in the early 1900’s being the best photographer the town ever had, I immediately requested audience with him at his home with his wife Verity.

When asked further, he told me that Mrs Eki Nishioka understood light and most of the outdoor photographs of the time were taken by her. He mentioned a particular photograph of the luggers taken from Kennedy Hill on the preface of his book (Broome Creek image (page xiii courtesy of the Western Australian Museum) would have been taken by her. He thought this particular photograph demonstrated a collaboration between Murakami and Eki: Murakami carried the tripod up Kennedy Hill for Eki, but it was Eki who had photographed the luggers among the mangroves, not Murakami.

Equipped with these thoughts, I later climbed up Kennedy Hill much like Eki and Murakami must have done, but I was on my own, and so to reduce the weight over my shoulders, I had left my tripod behind in my car. Even then it was difficult to climb the sand dune with my equipment to get to where I could photograph the sea scape below, carefully avoiding sea shells and broken glass, presumably left by the illegal campers evicted from Kennedy Hill about a year ago.

The blades of broken glass were glistening in the afternoon light and were no longer threateningly sharp . They had slightly weathered over the previous year, making me wonder how long it would take for the multi colored glass of green, brown, orange and crystal to lose its edges enough to look like a precious jewel.

The sun casted strange shadows along my path and I felt like my mind was in another world and that I could feel someone in the distance watching me. I reached the top of the hill, but there were no luggers below. Just overgrown mangroves, but as I began photographing, I could almost hear the shouting and jostling of sea men at shore and the laughter of women who waited for them.

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– Posted by Mayu Kanamori

Don’t make eye contact (with the heathen Asiatics)

Aunty Pearl Hamaguchi showed me three beautiful studio portraits of her mother Mary Barbara Lynott, photographed by Murakami. Mary Barbara Lynott was a Stolen Generation, taken to Beagle Bay Catholic Mission from Ruby Plains Station in East Kimberley , then sent to Broome to work as a servant girl for pearling masters.

“…. I used to love to hear her stories of her walks every Sunday after Mass to China Town. That was the only time they were allowed. So mother had all these photographs. Oh, about six of them I think there was all together. Mama, you got these lovely portraits. How did you possibly, you know, you were just a poor servant girl. Oh, no, no, no, she said. When us girls would walk down to China Town, with strict instructions from nuns, not to make eye contact with the heathen Asiatics, We’d pass Murakami’s photography shop. And he’d be waiting for mum. Barbara, Barbara, Eva. Mother’s very good friend Aunty Eva was beautiful woman as well. And can you imagine them in the finery in the 1930s. Lovely hat, lovely white dress with white stockings and whatever. Little handkerchief and five shillings or whatever they had to spend. He would look out for her. He would look out for these convent girls, you know. Barbara, please sit for me. I want to take your portrait. I want to take your portrait. Oh, I said. What did he look like? Oh, she said, he was very good-looking. And I’m thinking, but mother, why didn’t you… (laugh). She said I think he had a crush on me. That was my mother’s story….” – Pearl Hamaguchi

Mary Barbara Lynott photographed by Yasukichi Murakami

– Posted by Mayu Kanamori