General Notes on ‘Han’.

The whole body of work for the final exhibition is entitled ‘Han’ (see separate page for the definition of the term). Each piece stands alone but collectively becomes an installation involving the disciplines of print, sculpture, performance and installation.

The medium of print is used in 5 pieces and involves blind embossing, a print, which is both etched and aquatinted, and a shell casing that is etched with a motif in the ‘Art Nouveau’ style inherent in much of the ‘Trench Art’ of the First World War.

Sculpture is employed in the creation of the ‘Sugar Paste Flower Wreath’ and shell casing of ‘Hayaku, Hayaku’.

Performance is inherently sought from the viewer in their response to the print in the work ‘Cherry Blossoms Took My Life Away’. They are forced to naturally ‘bow’ or ‘kneel before’ the print to see it, and in doing so they pay reverence to the story being told before them without knowing what they are doing.

Installation is employed with the suspension of the previous piece on wires strung between ceiling and floor and also in the rendering of the space. I will create two walls to enclose the space. The walls will be painted with Blackboard Paint to contrast and show the predominantly ‘White Work’ to its best potential. The descriptions and titles will be painted directly on the walls in the manner of Exhibitions in the Tate Galleries. The floor will be carpeted in red and the ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ from ‘Runaway Train’ will be piped into the space to create a space that is contemplative and gives reverence to the subject matter.

The colour scheme of the whole of the work and space is white, black, red and blue (with the exception of the shell casings) in honor of the flag of the Republic of South Korea and the freedoms now enjoyed by Her people.

Notes on ‘”Cherry Blossoms took my life away”’

This piece consists of a decommissioned shell casing, etched in the style of ‘Trench Art’ in conjunction with a print, which has been etched and aquatinted.

As a whole, the piece represents the story of Grandma Shim Mi Ji, who was forced to be a comfort woman because she chose to embroider Morning Glories on a Map of Japan instead of Cherry Blossoms, hence the motif etched on the shell casing of Morning Glories attacking the Rose of Sharon (the National flower of Korea).

The shell casing represents the Military and Masculinity. It is the means of war, oppression and suppression. It is phallic and also redundant. It symbolizes the weight of the story of each Comfort Woman still hanging over them after all of these decades, and also the ease by which they were tricked and enforced into sexual slavery. The back is blank to show the ‘hidden nature’ of the Comfort Women for many decades, due to the sense of shame and humiliation. It also relates to the way in which the story was officially repressed for reasons of diplomacy and for the maintenance of strategic economic ties between governments. The fact that the shell casing is reflective, it draws us in and we find our own image on the work. We are part of the story either through action or inaction.

The Print is from a generic photograph of a Comfort Woman from the Internet, the global means of mass communication. The print represents all of the women involved, not just Grandma Shim Mi Ji. It is printed on ‘off white’ paper to represent the fact that the vast majority of women were Asian (although there were European and Australians forced into comfort stations, this aspect is dealt with in another piece of work).

The shell casing and print will be hung from wires in front of the whole installation, the former above the latter. The print will be approximately 3 feet above the floor and framed to the top and bottom with bamboo sewn to it, to reference the fact that Grandma Shim Mi Ji was tortured with bamboo needles for her embroidery. To see the print, one would either have to bend or kneel in front of it, the gestures of honor and respect in the Eastern and Western world. In honoring ‘Cherry Blossoms’, we honor the story of every Comfort Woman represented in the works behind.

Close up showing the detail of the etched shell casing

Notes on ‘One Day’

This piece consists of four blind embossed prints and deal with one hypothetical day where by the numbers involved are firstly the number of women being represented multiplied by the median number of rapes endured daily. As the number given is generally 20-40 (although there would be up to 100 at the weekend) my multiples are of 30.

One Day- 20 000. This is a blind embossed print consisting of 20 000 ‘rivets’ of compressed paper, regimented in lines over 4 x A1 prints. In my mind 20 000 is a meaningless figure because it is so difficult to understand what 20 000 of anything together would look like. In this print, the number has meaning because it is graphically portrayed in a manner that is easy to make sense of. I make the calculation:

20 000 x 30 = 600 000

I then take the calculation further. The higher end of estimates for the number of Comfort Women is 200 000. (This number is conceivable by multiplying my print by 10) In brackets I then do the same calculation of multiplication by 30 to arrive at the staggering number of 6 million potential rapes on my hypothetical ‘One Day’

One Day- 80%. This is as the above but takes the fact that about 80% of the women were Korean Women.

One Day- 3. This print consists of two sheets of A1 paper blind embossed with the number of Korean women who registered as Military Comfort Women for the Korean Government to be able to fight for their rights with the Government of Japan. Those 88 or so, still alive are represented by concave embossing, while those that have died are honored with convex embossing on the second sheet.

One Day- 4. Unlike the other 3 prints that are on off white paper, this print is snow white. It relates to the 35 Dutch women who were given justice after the war for being forced into Comfort Stations. It begs the question that if the rape of 35 Dutch women is a crime why not 200 Korean women or 20 000 or 200 000 Asian Women? The colour of the paper, denoting the inherent racism of the War Crimes Tribunal’s treatment of the Asian experience during World War II.

Each of the above prints are attached to bamboo at the top to hang rather than be framed. The bamboo is a direct reference to the story in ‘Cherry Blossoms Took My Life Away’, and binds the work to the other pieces through the thread of this testimony. The hanging is also in reference to the curtain that would hang in the door of each woman’s cell.

Notes on ‘Hayaku, Hayaku’:

There are three aspects to this piece, a decommissioned shell casing with painted inscription, a wreath of sugar paste flowers and the base from a Sony Television.

It illustrates the stories of Grandma Hong, Grandma Ha, Grandma Chung and Grandma Moon Pil Ki in their interviews with Dai Sil Kim-Gibson in her book ‘Silence Broken, Korean Comfort Women’, published by Mid-Prairie Books.

The shell casing is British, and reflects specifically and generally the role of Empire, Colonization and Politics in the story of the Comfort Women. Again, it represents the military and the masculine in dominance over the feminine. It tells the story of the women never being given time away. Even when they went to relive themselves or were menstruating, they were forced to continue.

The sugar paste flowers carry on the motif of the Morning Glories and Rose of Sharon from the testimony of Grandma Shim Mi Ja in ‘Cherry Blossoms took my life away’. I learned to make these flowers from my partners Grandma at Easter, a woman of the same generation as the Comfort Women, who, like Grandma Shim Mi Ja, is incredibly talented with her hands. I asked her to teach me this skill to represent and make incredibly personal to me the feminine nature of this aspect of the piece. There are 100 Morning Glories (‘Grandma Chung cited 100 on weekends – violated these women) and one Rose of Sharon. It is an ‘Anthem to Doomed Youth’. The sugar paste is sweet and more fragile than porcelain. It is a metaphor for the sweetness and fragility of youth and virginity. The Rose of Sharon’s red centered petals are reflected in the blush in the heart of the Morning Glories. It is emblematic of the tainting by menstrual blood; the rape of the innocent and the loss of innocence. Each flower is dusted with silver to symbolize the sweat of the exertion and the perspiration of anticipation. It is circular as a wreath but also in the fact that the stream of men was never ending. The limp leaf to the left of the Rose of Sharon is a vine leaf. The Christian symbol for ‘Justice’ rendered impotent by the weight of sorrow and denial.

The base is black resin and again highly reflective. We see the sculpture reflected and distorted and contorted on its surface, as the issue has been by successive governments. It represents the modern technological achievements of both Japan and Korea, but begs the question ‘at what cost?’

The Rose of Sharon

Re Exhibited at 'Phantasmagoria'

Last year, I was asked by a fellow artist and friend Ramon Salgado Touzon to re exhibit the work from my degree show at an exhibition that he was organising called 'Phantasmagoria' which was held in the O2 Shopping Mall, Finchley Road, London. Here are some photographs from that exhibition:

Ramon and I take a break

Telling the story of the Comfort Women

as told in the work with:

Jonas, Daisy Delaney and Ramon

After months of hard work, Ramon gets a chance to sit down and appreciate all of his hard work for Phantasmagoria!

N.B. All of the works from my final degree show were either given away to publicise the plight of the Comfort Women or the large shell casing in 'Cherry Blossoms' was sold at a charity auction to aid the Mtaala Foundation which creates and supports education communities for vulnerable children and at-risk youth, including those affected by poverty, war, and HIV/AIDS.

http://www.mtaala.bigcartel.com/about