Chikako Yamashiro facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Chikako Yamashiro
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| Born | 1976 (age 48–49) |
| Nationality |  Japanese |
| Alma mater | Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College |
| Occupation | Film maker and video artist |
Chikako Yamashiro (山城 知佳子, Yamashiro Chikako, born 1976) is a Japanese filmmaker and video artist. Her art, which includes photos, videos, and performances, explores the history and culture of her home, Okinawa.
Her work often focuses on important themes. She explores the sad history of the people of Okinawa during World War II. She also looks at the challenges caused by the U.S. military bases located there. Since 2019, she has been a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts.
Yamashiro has won many awards for her art. These include the Asian Art Award in 2017 and the Tokyo Contemporary Art Award for 2020-2022.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Chikako Yamashiro was born in 1976 in Naha, a city in Okinawa. She grew up on the island. She first studied oil painting at the Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts.
In 2000, she studied in the United Kingdom at what is now the University for the Creative Arts. She later returned to Okinawa and earned her master's degree in 2002.
Art Career
Finding Her Style
When Yamashiro was a student, she felt that painting didn't truly express her Okinawan identity. She wanted to find a more authentic way to make art. This led her to study ancient spiritual places and traditions on the islands.
She became very interested in Okinawan tombs and graveyards. These places are important in Okinawan culture. For example, families hold a special meal at the grave to greet their ancestors. This is called seimeisai. Yamashiro saw these traditions as a celebration of life and death.
Her early art used these graveyards as a setting. In a video called Okinawa Graveyard Club (2004), she dances in tennis clothes in front of a tomb. These early works were often playful and full of energy.
Exploring Borders
Yamashiro's art also explores the idea of borders. In Okinawa, there are many fences that separate local land from U.S. military bases. In her 2003 video BORDER, she walks along one of these fences. The video shows how an Okinawan tomb was trapped inside the U.S. base. This meant families could no longer visit it.
From this point on, much of her art has focused on the relationship between Okinawa and the U.S. bases.
OKINAWA TOURIST Series (2004)
In 2004, Yamashiro had her first big show as a video artist. It featured a series of short performance videos called OKINAWA TOURIST.
At the time, many TV shows and travel ads showed Okinawa as a perfect paradise with blue skies and seas. The government promoted this image to encourage tourism. Yamashiro felt this picture was incomplete. It ignored the real-life problems of the people living there.
Her videos used humor to challenge this simple image.
- Graveyard Eisa: This video shows a dance group performing a traditional Okinawan dance, called eisa, in a graveyard.
- I Like Okinawa Sweet: This video shows Yamashiro eating an ice cream cone in front of a military base fence.
- Trip to Japan: In this video, she stands in front of the National Diet Building (Japan's parliament) in Tokyo. She acts like a tour guide, holding up a picture of an Okinawan tomb.
These videos showed a different side of Okinawa. They reminded people of the complex issues happening on the island.
Art About Land and Sea
Between 2007 and 2008, Yamashiro made two videos about how the military bases affected Okinawa's beaches and waters.
In Seaweed Women (2008), the video is filmed from the point of view of a woman swimming in the sea. As she swims, she crosses an invisible border between Okinawan waters and waters controlled by the U.S. military. The camera shows an army tank on the sea floor and a Japanese coast guard boat. The video hints at the tensions over these areas.
Sharing Memories of War
Yamashiro created the Inheritance series from 2008 to 2010. For this project, she worked with elderly survivors of World War II in Okinawa. Many of them had never spoken about their difficult experiences.
One important video from this series is Your Voice Came Out Through My Throat (2009). In it, Yamashiro listens to a man tell a very sad story from his past. She then memorized his words. The video shows her face with a projection of the man's face on top of hers. As she silently mouths his story, we hear his voice.
By doing this, Yamashiro felt she could better understand his pain. She used her own body to help pass these important stories from the older generation to the younger generation.
Mud Man (2016)
Mud Man is one of Yamashiro's most famous video works. It connects the history of Okinawa with other places in Asia that have also been affected by military presence.
The video shows men and women covered in mud. They seem to have flashbacks to different wars, including the Battle of Okinawa and the Korean War. The film mixes past and present. It shows historical war footage alongside modern images of people protesting against base construction.
For this project, Yamashiro traveled to Jeju Island in South Korea. A new naval base was built there, causing protests similar to those in Okinawa. The video includes poems read in Korean, the Okinawan dialect, and Japanese. This links the shared experiences of both places.
Mud Man won several major awards and was praised by audiences around the world.
Publications and Works
Publications
- Chikako Yamashiro. Tokyo: Yumiko Chiba Associates, 2012.
- Asanuma, Keiko (editor). Circulating World: The Art of Chikako Yamashiro. Tokyo: Yumiko Chiba Associates, 2016.
Selected Works
- 2003: BORDER
- 2004: Okinawa Graveyard Club
- 2004: OKINAWA TOURIST series
- 2007: Shore Connivance — Shore of Ibano, Urasoe City — Complex.1 —
- 2008: Seaweed Woman
- 2009: Your voice came out through my throat
- 2016: Mud Man
- 2019: Chinbin Western: Representation of the Family
Exhibitions
Yamashiro's art has been shown in museums and galleries in Japan and in many other countries.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- 2012: MAM Project 018: Yamashiro Chikako (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo)
- 2018: Shapeshifter (White Rainbow, London)
- 2025: An Evening With Chikako Yamashiro (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Selected Group Exhibitions
- 2008: Okinawa Prismed 1872-2008 (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)
- 2012-13: Women In-Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012 (Fukuoka Asian Art Museum)
- 2016: Aichi Triennale (Aichi, Japan)
- 2016-17: From Generation to Generation: Inherited Memory and Contemporary Art (Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco)
- 2018: Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize 2018 (National Museum of Singapore)
- 2019: Image Narratives: Literature in Japanese Contemporary Art (The National Art Center, Tokyo)
