Public Art Exhibition on Women's Rights 'Alight' Held in Seongbuk-gu

Presenting a work created over 3 years of filming and research on women's rights and comfort women... American artist Ara Oshagan raises global awareness of the Japanese military comfort women issue through the work 'Halmoni'... Interactive media art 'Eolgul' expresses real-time online reactions to women's rights

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] From the 9th to the 13th, a public art exhibition themed on women's rights will be held at 'Bunsu Maru' near Hansung University Station in Seongbuk-gu (Mayor Lee Seung-ro).

Sponsored by the Seoul Gender Equality Fund and the Seongbuk Cultural Foundation, this special exhibition on women's rights, 'Alight' (curated by Hye-yeon Jeon), features American artist Ara Oshagan and Korean artists Jae-hyung Lee and Jung-min Park. The exhibition is the result of three years of filming and research in Korea and the United States since 2017, focusing on women's rights and the issue of Japanese military comfort women.

This exhibition is a project that began through the connection with Glendale City, which was the first in the world to erect a statue of a girl on public land and established Comfort Women’s Day six years earlier than Korea.

In particular, Ara Oshagan's work 'Grandmother' is a large-scale sculpture depicting the image of a comfort woman grandmother, receiving acclaim for raising global awareness about comfort women and women's rights issues. The efforts to publicize the history of comfort women include not only the activities of specific organizations or famous individuals but also all actions taken by numerous anonymous citizens and overseas activists to protect our history.

The QR code displayed next to the artwork contains footage of Ara Oshagan meeting various people and individuals related to comfort women during the preparation of the work.

American artist Ara Oshagan is the curator of Glendale City's public space 'Reflectspace' and was recognized as a 'Pioneering Curator' selected by the City of Los Angeles in 2018.

Over the past three years, she has visited Korea three times and conducted photographic work by meeting directly with grandmothers Kim Bok-dong, Gil Won-ok, Lee Ok-sun (Boeun), and Lee Yong-soo. Through these encounters, she empathized with the grandmothers and worked closely with them, visiting various regions involved in comfort women activities and meeting grassroots activists.

For this exhibition, American groups and academic figures who helped erect the San Francisco Comfort Woman Statue also participated as activist models.

This special exhibition also features interactive media artworks. The artist team Jae-hyung Lee + Jung-min Park, specializing in projection mapping and interactive media, will present the interactive media art 'Face,' which shows real-time reactions to women's rights. After three years of research and investigation, an AI trained on 50,000 sentences and emotional words analyzes news comments and social media in real time. Depending on the analysis results, the expression of the woman on the screen changes.

The more positive news about women's rights online, the more the woman on the screen smiles; conversely, the more negative comments there are, the more she shows a depressed expression. Through this, visitors can immediately sense the online atmosphere regarding women's rights.

This provides an opportunity to view real-time information about women's rights circulating online at a glance, potentially leading to changes in awareness.

Meanwhile, Seongbuk-gu and Glendale City have maintained a sister city relationship and ongoing exchanges. Last year, Glendale City empathized with the desire for human rights and honor restoration for Japanese military comfort women victims and erected a statue of a girl. Additionally, about 1,500 elementary, middle, and high school students from Seongbuk-gu sent handwritten letters of support and gratitude.

This exhibition, supported by the Seoul Gender Equality Fund, Seongbuk District Office, and Seongbuk Cultural Foundation, which have consistently planned and promoted exhibitions reflecting voices on women's rights, can be viewed until the 13th of this month.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.