Mao Ishikawa

Mao Ishikawa was born in 1953 in Ogimi Village, under the Ryukyu Government (present-day Okinawa Prefecture). She began working with photography in the 1970s and studied at the WORKSHOP School of Photography under Shomei Tomatsu in 1974. Based in Okinawa, she has continued her photographic practice focusing on people connected to Okinawa, producing works closely engaged with everyday life and social realities.

She received the Sagamihara Photography Award in 2011 for FENCES, OKINAWA, and the Photographer Award from the Photographic Society of Japan in 2019. In 2024, she received the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award, the Ken Domon Award, and the Higashikawa Award.

Her major solo exhibitions include Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum (2021), Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2023), and Warwick Arts Centre, UK (2025). She has participated in major international exhibitions including the Busan Biennale (2024), the São Paulo Biennial (2025), and the Whitney Biennial (2026).

Her works have been exhibited internationally and are held in numerous public collections, including the Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Yokohama Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.