Do you recall the haunting island home of the villainous Raoul Silva in the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall?

This is the uninhabited Japanese island of Gunkanjima, alias Battleship Island, an abandoned place that has been registered as an UNESCO world heritage site since 2015.

It now forms the subject of the first solo exhibition by the Japanese-born York photographer Makiko, whose show Paradise Revisited: A Trip Back To A Childhood On Gunkanjima opened earlier this week at the Atrium Gallery, in the Old Building, London School of Economics.

“As far as I am aware, this is the first time that there has been an exhibition of this abandoned island outside of Japan and I'm really honoured to be able show this fascinating story,” says Makiko.

York Press:

Gunkanjima: "I found this place very monochromatic," says Makiko

On display are 26 monochrome photographs that capture childhood memories of an island untouched for more than 40 years, after the award-winning Makiko was granted rare permission by Nagasaki City to visit the restricted zone.

Tourist ferry boats take one-hour trips to the island but not to the restricted heart of Gunkanjima, whereas Makiko's permission enabled her to show how it is now and to remember how it was 40 years ago. "I do take photographs in colour too, but I found this place very monochromatic, so from the beginning I knew they had to be in black and white," she says.

It adds to the sense of memory, erosion, and echoes too, in contrast to former residents reacting to the strange ways previous photographers had represented the buildings by saying "that's not our island".

Gunkamjina was once an industrial metropolis, bought by Mitsubishi in 1890 to extract coal from undersea mines. In 1916, the company built Japan's first large seven-storey concrete building, choosing concrete specifically to protect against typhoon destruction.

In 1960, the island population peaked at 5,267 inhabitants, making it one of the most densely crowded places on Earth, but when petroleum replaced coal in Japan in the 1960s, the mines started shutting down and by 1974 Mitsubishi had closed its mine.

The residents were asked to leave within three months and as leaving ships could not accommodate all their possessions, many of them left their belongings inside their homes. Consequently, the island is caught in a time capsule.

So too are the memories of a former resident from a mining family who spent a happy childhood on the island before having to leave at the age of 13, and now provides the narrative story that helps Makiko to bring the scenes to life.

York Press:

Self-portrait: York photographer Makiko's mirror image

Inspired by an old photograph of a little girl on the island, Makiko decided to shoot her photographic essay from the former resident's perspective as a child, and Makiko's diminutive height duly aided her in capturing images of the city from a child's eye.

Makiko had grown up in Fukuoka, a three-hour trip from Gunkanjima, and had a vague memory of the island. "Something about this place had stayed in the back of my mind and I kept thinking about it for a long time. I had always wanted to visit and it was a real privilege to be granted permission to photograph this extraordinary island where time has stood still," she says.

Makiko took 700 photographs during her island trip just after the UNESCO World Heritage status was granted; one unforgettable day undertaking a "really rough, really bumpy ride on a fishing boat", then returning there on the tourist boat. Her focus was on the outside spaces – the buildings were too unstable to enter – and the photo sequence shows places where children played, such as the school and playground, tennis courts, flats occupied by teaching staff, the hospital, the walk to the park, and imaginative Japanese graffiti too.

“Psychologically, I was shocked at what I saw but it was fascinating too; first impressions resembled a war zone, parts of the buildings continue to fall down and are full of rubble," she says. "Once my eyes had adjusted, I was able to put together the narrative with the former resident and to think about children who spent their childhood on this island and how the buildings would have appeared to them.

York Press:

Flowers growing amid Gunkanjima's abandoned buildings. Picture: Makiko

"I could imagine hearing their happy voices while I was walking around the streets. If you don’t have this imagination all you only see are ruins, but I've made it look mysterious, as if going there was like a priceless experience."

The exhibition has been produced in collaboration with Nagasaki City and Nagasaki University, backed by sponsorship from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation in association with LSE Arts. A selection of photographs has been chosen by the Mayor of Nagasaki City to be displayed permanently in the city’s Gunkanjima Museum after Makiko's recent visit there.

Makiko last lived in Japan 24 years ago, leaving Tokyo after eight years, and she has since lived in Paris, London, New York, Bermuda, Baltimore and Switzerland. Matching those travels, she has exhibited in North America, Japan and Europe and now she hopes that the Gunkanjima photographs can be shown in York, where she and her financier husband and family moved three years ago at the request of her elder son.

"It would be interesting to see how people in York and the north react to the Gunkanjima photographs because of the industrial heritage here and the last deep-cast mine in Yorkshire having just closed," says Makiko, who also hopes to publish a book of the photographs.

What might she photograph in York? "I'm still looking for a subject. I'm not interested in taking pretty editorial photographs you can see on the Internet," she says. "I'm looking for an artistic twist." A Makiko twist.

Makiko's exhibition, Paradise Revisited: A Trip Back To A Childhood On Gunkanjima, runs at the Atrium Gallery, Old Building, London School of Economics, until June 10, open Monday to Friday from 10am to 8pm.