This paper aims to examine photography in post-war, post-colonial Japan and South Korea, focusing on the ways in which artists challenge official memories and create counter-hegemonic memories. After the end of the Pacific War, both countries witnessed the growing presence of the U.S. and its military, which had a strong impact on the formation of post-war national identity. The U.S. military occupation changed Japan's status from coloniser to colonised, thus disrupting its momentum to proceed with the deimperialisation process; in South Korea, a strong pro-Americanism was installed in the aftermath of the Korean War, in close association with a secular faith of anti-communism. However, the imagery of the U.S. military's presence and activities has scarcely registered as photographic subjects in these countries, as particular historical contexts were rendered invisible in order to create and sustain the unified official narrative.
Focusing on these memories forgotten in the process of official commemorations, this paper examines rare early examples of photography that shed light on the U.S. military's activities in Japan and South Korea. It explores Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako's photography in the 1970s, which traces the impact of the U.S. military occupation on the daily lives of local residents in U.S. military camp towns in Japan. The paper also examines Joo Myung-Duck's 1965 series of photographs The Mixed Names, which highlights mixed-race children of American servicemen and Korean sex workers. By analysing the post-war generation of photographers who were vigilant against the operation of hegemonic memory, the paper will examine how their photography represented the rethinking of the traumas and memories of their entangled pasts.
