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"Quest for Justice" art exhibit exploring the story of Korean comfort women comes to Barnard College Oct. 6-12

NEW YORK, N.Y., Sept. 25, 2000 - Barnard College will host an art exhibit - "Quest for Justice: The Story of Korean Comfort Women, As Told Through Their Art" - that explores the history of women forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military camps during World War II. The exhibit will open at 6 p.m., Friday, Oct. 6, in the James Room of Barnard Hall, and continue through Oct. 12.

Speakers on opening night will include: Soon-Duk Kim, one of the featured artists; HyeJin, founder of the House of Sharing; Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, director of the documentary film Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women, which will be screened at the event, and; Rhonda Copelon, Professor of Law at City University of New York.

The term "comfort women" is a euphemism for those women forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military camps during World War II. After the war, those who returned home often lived in poverty, enduring physical and emotional problems while keeping secret their painful experiences. Since the early 1990s more and more former comfort women have come forward to reveal their pasts and to demand reparations from Japan.

Several former comfort women, now the age of grandmothers, moved in 1992 into the House of Sharing in Seoul, South Korea, where they received art instruction as part of their therapy. The paintings and sketches from these sessions have evolved into the compelling expressions of this exhibition, full of shame, anger, bitterness and lost innocence, yet powered by a determination for justice and understanding.

The exhibition, which opened in Chicago on September 22, will also be shown in Philadelphia, Toronto, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The exhibition is sponsored by Barnard College, The East Asian Institute, Columbia University, Young Koreans United and New York Alliance for Peace and Reunification of Korea.

For more information, please contact Kristi Barnes, East Asian Institute, Columbia University at (212) 854-1742.

Opening: Friday, October 6, 2000 at 6:00 p.m., continuing through Oct. 12
Where: Barnard Hall, Barnard College, Broadway and 117th St., NYC, 10027 Exhibition hours: October 6, 6:00 p.m., October 7-10, 10 a.m.-7 pm, October 11, 9 a.m.-12 p.m., and October 12, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

Contact: Kristi Barnes, East Asian Institute, 212-854-1742
Lucas Held, Barnard, 212-854-2037