When You Call My Name is a collaborative project honouring civilians who were brought from Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, and across Australia and New Zealand as ‘Japanese enemy aliens’ to be interned in Australia and New Zealand during WWII, and who died during internment.
They include 26 people from Taiwan and one from Korea. They were included with the Japanese because Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula were under the rule of Japan during the Pacific War. 192 people are now buried in the Japanese Cemetery in Cowra, NSW, Australia; 11 people, including 3 Thai students who died in a plane crash, are buried at the Waikumete Cemetery in Auckland; and two who died on the voyage to Australia were buried at sea.
The project gives every participant an information kit on a particular internee to ‘adopt’. The participant will be asked to respond to their learnings with a 2D artwork, or a photograph of a work, which includes the name of the internee.
The resulting artworks will be exhibited online, as a print catalogue and be collated as a part of a large-scale group collage for exhibition.
Image Above: Tatura, Vic. 1945-06-15. Japanese internees of No. 4 camp, Tatura Internment Group, line up for dental parade at No. 1 camp. Australian War Memorial, Accession No. 052460.
