Born 1976, Naha, Japan
Lives and works in Naha

Yamashiro Chikako's photographs, videos and films dramatise lesser-known aspects of Okinawa's contemporary reality, while questioning dominant historical accounts of Japanese and American occupation of the islands. The site of fierce battles between the US and Japan at the end of World War Two, Okinawa still has a high concentration of American military bases, occupying around 20 per cent of the land — despite the wishes of many of its indigenous inhabitants. Yamashiro's practice engages with its political and social histories to create provocative and haunting works, drawing on oral accounts and often utilising her own body. A Woman of the Butcher Shop 2012, a three-channel video installation, continues her fascination with marginalised narratives and histories, telling the story of a woman who runs a meat shop at a black market on the fringes of one of the island's many US military bases. The story is poetic and non-linear in form, allowing Yamashiro to reflect on the social construction of gender relations and the symbolic potential of meat.