Mao Ishikawa is an Okinawan photographer and activist. Her photographs largely feature bar girls, performers, soldiers, and other fringe members within Okinawan and Japanese society. Ishikawa's earlier works are characterized by her approach to photography which involved the photographer's immersion in the environment of her images, whether by living with her subject or working in close proximity to them. In her photographs of active soldiers and military bases both in and outside of Japan beginning from the 1990s, Ishikawa has more directly addressed political undercurrents, namely contempt for the U.S. military presence in Okinawa and distrust of the Japanese government. Her most recent series Great Ryukyu Photo Scroll approaches the same themes through a narrative tone, using satire and pop culture references to reconstruct important moments in Okinawan history.
Ishikawa's work has been exhibited at the Yokohama Museum of Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Okinawa Prefectural Museum, MoMA PS1 and various art galleries in New York, London, and throughout Japan. In 2019, she received the Lifetime Achieve Award by the Photographic Society of Japan.