The Okinawan

Gallery Rougheryet

Finished

Artists

Katsuko Ishigaki, Kaoru Endo, Nobue Nakama, Reona Nishinaga, Hayato Machida, Pak Yong-Goun

This exhibition is a small attempt to approach the entity or fiction of “Okinawans."

The concept of "Okinawans" has only existed for about 140 years. In 1872, Emperor Meiji incorporated the Ryukyu Islands into the modern nation of Japan as the Ryukyu Domain, and in 1879, he abolished the Ryukyu Domain and established Okinawa Prefecture. For the next 66 years, the Ryukyu people cultivated a collective self-consciousness as "Okinawans," "Japanese citizens," and "the Emperor's babies," but the horrific war ending in 1945 made them realize the disastrous nature of these identities.

The "Okinawans" were then called Ryukyuans under the U.S. Occupation, but in an attempt to escape the yoke of military rule, they longed to return to the "homeland" to which they had belonged for 66 years. In 2022, half a century after the return of Okinawa to Japan on May 15, 1972, what does it mean to be "Okinawan"? Will their identity as "Okinawans" disappear with the passage of time and move toward a unified existence as part of the "Japanese" people?

This exhibition poses these questions to the artists of the post-Okinawa reversion period. The existence or absence of "Okinawan" identity is expressed by the children of globalization, who may dream of not belonging anywhere and not being bound by anything. Rather than a historical retrospective, this exhibition reveals the "here and now" of Okinawa through artists' eyes.

Schedule

Sep 3 (Sat) 2022-Sep 11 (Sun) 2022