OKINAWA!! by Victoire Thierrée

A photobook by French artist Victoire Thierrée.

Thierrée first encountered the land of Okinawa during her initial visit to Japan in 2012, through the work of photographer Shōmei Tōmatsu (1930–2012). Tōmatsu was the first photographer to document the presence of the U.S. military in Okinawa, a body of work that culminated in the landmark publication, "Okinawa Okinawa Okinawa" in 1969.

In 2019, Thierrée returned to Okinawa to photograph the region, as it remains home to 32 U.S. military bases. Focusing on the areas surrounding these sites, she created a series of black-and-white images shot in vertical 6×9 format. In these landscapes, nature appears to quietly push back against human occupation, gradually reclaiming space.

This series led her to the archives of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., which she visited in 2023 to research the work of botanist Egbert H. Walker (1899–1991). In the aftermath of World War II, Walker launched the Servicemen’s Collecting Program, encouraging U.S. soldiers to gather natural specimens―plants, minerals, corals―and document them. In 1951 alone, over 8,000 plant specimens were collected from Okinawan regions, including former battlefields.

From this archive, Thierrée selected 40 herbarium specimens and rephotographed them in black and white. OKINAWA!! brings together these two bodies of work―landscapes near military bases and historical botanical specimens―into a single volume, offering a quiet dialogue between past and present, documentation and nature, and occupation and reclamation.

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Title: OKINAWA!!
Artist: Victoire Thierrée
Publisher: RVB Books, 2025
Format: Hardcover
Size: 230 × 335 mm
Pages: 120
Language: English and French
Edition: First edition
ISBN: 978-2-492175-57-2
Price: ¥8,030