Yokosuka Story (Japanese: 絶唱、横須賀ストーリー) by Ishiuchi Miyako was photographed between 1976 and 1977 in Yokosuka, Japan, a city shaped by its American naval base and the photographer's own troubled adolescence. Yokosuka Story responds to the cultural tensions of postwar Japan, where the lingering U.S. military presence and the contrast between "Little America" districts and traditional neighborhoods embodied national and personal contradictions.
Building on this, the project reflects Ishiuchi's ambivalent return to a place she once vowed never to revisit. Rather than seeking documentation, her aim was introspection: to uncover her origins through an emotional re-engagement with Yokosuka's streets, buildings, and scars. The city emerges as both a physical environment and a psychological space, marked by postwar upheaval and unspoken violence.
Visually, the series consists of grain-heavy black-and-white photographs with deep contrasts and dark tonalities. The images are stark and textured, often depicting street scenes and confined urban corners. These are not neutral observations but rather emotionally charged representations shaped by memory.
Technically speaking, Ishiuchi worked with a handheld 35mm camera, but the essence of the project lies in her darkroom practice. She considered the darkroom a site of catharsis, where she could confront the past by transferring emotion onto paper.
Debuting at Nikon Salon, Tokyo (1977) and published as a photobook in 1979, Yokosuka Story quickly shaped Ishiuchi’s early trilogy and reputation. Subsequent retrospectives—Tate Modern (2013) and Getty’s Postwar Shadows (2015)—and later revisitations (PPP Editions’ Sweet Home Yokosuka 1976–1980, 2010) sustained its status as a touchstone of personal memory in postwar Japan.
