Read Professor Kunitmoto's newest publication on Situating Being a Statue of a Japanese “Comfort Woman:” Shimada Yoshiko, Bourgeois Liberalism, and the Afterlives of Japanese Imperialism in Verge: Studies in Global Asia, volume 8.2. 

Abstract:

This paper examines work by Shimada Yoshiko, the Tomorrow Girls Troop, as well as Korean artists Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung, whose work likewise addresses inter-Asian colonialism and has drawn vociferous responses from various segments of the public. Specifically, I argue that Shimada’s performance work, Becoming a Statue of a Japanese ‘Comfort Woman,’ is not about revisiting a singular moment in time, but instead seeks to reveal how economic violence and social violence are ripple effects that share the same origin: specifically, a form of bourgeois liberalism that upholds patriarchy, attempts to maintain an image of societal unity, and disavows responsibility for the past.