Nikkei Australian identity and the work of Mayu Kanamori

This chapter explores significant works in the oeuvre of Nikkei Australian artist Mayu Kanamori, providing a theoretical framework for Nikkei Australian identity and experience and highlighting how Kanamori’s work reflects the many and varied forms that Nikkei Australian experience can take. This chapter argues that ‘Nikkei Australian’ cannot be reduced to monolithic or stereotypical forms. Rather, Steains argues that its heterogeneity makes it a creative site for interactions between Japanese and Australian cultures and identities. While ‘Japan in Australia’ can suggest two separate entities co-existing, Steains aims to complement this idea with the mixing and enmeshment implied by ‘Japanese Australian’ and ‘Nikkei Australian’.