Encounter

Tracing Wind series

31/10/2024


Encounter, is an exhibition at the Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Sydney, from the 9th November - 7th December, 2024. Artists include Sylvia Griffin, Pamela Leung, Juanita McLauchlan, Lisa Pang and Sue Pedley.

My work from the Tracing Wind series approaches the theme of colliding cultural worlds from the perspective of an extraordinary historical event that took place in 1830. The colonial brig Cyprus voyaged from Recherche Bay, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) under pirate control and with ten escaped convicts. It reached Japanese waters and was repulsed by samurai from Teba Jima island, Awa Domain (Tokushima). At the time Japan had been closed to outside contact for over two centuries. Makita Hamaguchi, a local samurai, wrote the first account of the episode, illustrated with watercolour and indigo dye.
My research is based on the Edo period manuscripts, one of which she viewed at the Tokushima Archive during a recent residency on Teba Jima. I am indebted to Nick Russell, an historian living in Japan. The manuscripts are a unique record of how the Japanese samurai encountered and perceived the barbarians on board the ship as they encroached on Japan’s closed borders.

Exhibited works include paintings created in Japan and Australia. The indigo paintings are tracings of washed up detritus collected from the shoreline of Teba Jima where the samurai fired canons at the barbarians. The paintings map the journey of the escapees across the Pacific Ocean steered by the wind and currents, tracing discarded ropes.

Tracing Wind builds on previous work addressing the settler and maritime history of my family in Tasmania and historical links between Tasmania and Japan. This work is the preliminary research for a larger project titled Prevailing Gales which will be exhibited in Japan and Tasmania in 2025.


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