On-Board ‘train Australia’: Some contexts of the works of Kanamori and Murakami

IMAGE: Courtesy MURAKAMI FAMILY ARCHIVES

Article by Nikkei Australia’s Dr Lorna Kaino (Edith Cowan University) in Journal of Australian Studies, Volume27 p.105-125 (2013) can be ordered on line through subscription from “Association for Australian Studies” webpage: http://www.australienstudien.org/index.php/en/publications-en?id=19

This article is concerned with two Japanese Australian photographers: Mayu Kanamori and Yasukichi Murakami. Kanamori has been working as a commercial and editorial photographer and a photographic artist since arriving in Australia at the end of the twentieth century. Nearly one hundred years before then, Yasukichi Murakami began working as a commercial photographer in an inhospitable Australia where Asians were merginalised and discriminated against. Conditions have improved today. However, one aspect of that cultural climate remains; a cultural anxiety about Asians living in Australia (Ang 2003)