Pirates and Samurai
EXHIBITION DEVELOPMENT
Australia Japan Foundation
2019-2020
In 2017, Japan-based historian Nick Russell uncovered evidence of an encounter between escaped convicts on a stolen ship from Van Diemen's Land and samurai and fishermen along the coast of Tokushima Prefecture on the island of Shikoku.
Nick Russell's discovery connected the foreign ship recorded in the samurai manuscripts to one of colonial Australia's greatest convict escape stories. The story of the Cyprus, a brig seized by convicts, on their way to Macquarie Harbour.
The Pirates and Samurai project will complete the translation of the manuscripts and research an exhibition of these documents and other art and objects at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) in Hobart and the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) in Sydney.