Modoru Okinawa — Keizo Kitajima (First edition, 2015)

Between 1975 and the early 1980s, Keizo Kitajima turned his lens on Koza City, Okinawa — a site charged with aftershocks from the Vietnam War and the overwhelming presence of the U.S. military. Modoru Okinawa, published in 2015 in a limited edition of 1000 copies, gathers this vital and volatile body of work. The book is a deep dive into a momentary cultural rupture, where Japanese and African-American subcultures collided in the chaotic, euphoric aftermath of war.

Shot in coarse, high-flash duotones and tritones, Kitajima’s images explode with gesture and shadow: nightlife, bodies, encounters, collapsed boundaries. Koza becomes a stage for a raucous performance of occupation, influence, identity and desire. There's no nostalgia here — only a raw, unfiltered clarity. Kitajima’s eye is not sentimental but surgical, committed to photography as an act of estrangement. His visual language pushes past appearance and into something more unstable, more urgent.

Printed on matte Gardapat with a black cloth spine, this volume is a tactile object as much as a photographic one — designed with the same stark intensity as its images. Modoru Okinawa is a necessary entry in the Darwin catalogue, resonating alongside Tomatsu’s and Moriyama’s views of postwar Japan, but carrying its own brutal rhythm — one of shock, seduction and the flicker of cultural collapse.

Technical Sheet

Title: Modoru Okinawa
Artist / Author: Keizo Kitajima
Date: 2015
Technique / Printing Method: Duotone and Tritone
Medium / Materials: Hardcover, black cloth backstrip, sewn binding
Edition: First edition, numbered 478/1000
Signed: No
Dimensions (cm): 24 x 17.5 cm
Language: Japanese / English
Pages: 136
Publisher / Editor: Gomma Books Ltd.
ISBN: Not stated
Condition: NEW