Imaging "Comfort Women": Girl Statue of Peace (2011) in the Expanded Field

Abstract

The Statue of Peace (2011), known as the Girl Statue in Korean, memorializes the “comfort women,” victims of military sexual violence in the colonial and occupied territories under the Japanese Empire (c.1931-1945). Created by artists Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung, the Girl Statue is a life-size, bronze, freestanding sculpture of an empty chair next to a seated girl, confronting the site of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Since its installation in 2011, the Girl Statue image has proliferated across media, scale, form, and function by artists and the public. The Girl Statue has been reproduced as replicas, watercolor paintings, logo images, gigantic balloons, plastic miniatures, coinage, soft dolls, bracelets, 3D toys, wooden DIY models, LEGO, performances, AR Challenge on social media, and even tattoos.This dissertation explores the expansion of the Girl Statue over the ten years (2011-2021). Despite its aim to raise awareness of the “comfort women” issue and foster solidarity, the Girl Statue has served the desires and motivations of its makers, consumers, and participants. The multiplication of the Girl Statues symbolically compensated for the dwindling numbers of “comfort women” victims. The narrative of vanishing victims is exemplified by novels and films that underscore the decreasing numbers of the last “comfort women” as an endangered group in need of rescue. The immediacy and intimacy of the Girl Statues as collectible souvenirs grant a sense of satisfaction that one is contributing to an important cause for justice. Through a close analysis of site visits, conversations, newspapers, television, social media, archives, and symposia, this research explores how our engagement with the Girl Statue shapes and reflects our values regarding humanity. The uncomfortable burden persists for the “comfort women,” who, in becoming images, continue to comfort the present.