Shirozato to Shinju (White Sugar and Pearls) - Elysha Rei

As a Nikkei Australian, a person of Japanese descent living in Australia, artist Elysha Rei references and reimagines Japanese-Australian histories. She feels compelled to create space for and to share these stories with new audiences and generations. In Shirozato to Shinju (White Sugar and Pearls), Rei brings important histories from North Queensland to the fore. For 12 years the first Japanese Consulate presided in Gurambilbarra / Townsville, marking Queensland's long history with Japanese-Australian relations. Nearly 4,000 Japanese migrant workers were drawn to this area for work across harvesting industries, including sugar cane, turtle, trochus, beche de mer, and pearling.

Rei has used archival records that document the Japanese migration and labour in these industries as the basis for hand-cut washi paper artworks. She depicts sugar cane, pearls, shells, and turtles gathered by early Japanese migrants in Queensland. The delicate, white forms contradict the harsh conditions these harvests were collected within. The installation is also an ironic gesture to the White Australia Policy, which inevitably restricted the Japanese population in Queensland, forcing the Townsville Consulate to close.

Elysha Rei (pronounced eh-lee-sha ray) is a Japanese-Australian artist who explores narratives of cultural identity, site-specific history and environmental elements through paper cutting and public art. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts (2008), a Masters in Business Administration (2018) and is currently undertaking a PhD exploring how Nikkei Australian identity is archived through creative paper cutting practice. Rei has created and exhibited work, curated exhibitions and managed cultural spaces over the past two decades in Australia and internationally. She founded the international artist residency program, Sam Rit Residency in rural Thailand in 2014, and co-founded the Artist-Run-Initiative Made Creative Space Toowoomba from 2011-2013. She has been an invited artist-in-residence for the Museum of Brisbane, Artspace Mackay and Barcaldine Arts Council. In 2018 Rei was the recipient of an Asialink Arts Creative Exchange in Japan, and is an artist fellow with the Past Wrongs Future Choices global research project based in Canada.

Starts 13 June 2025 and ends 27 July 2025.