Among all of the remarkable 25 artists who have defined visual culture in the year 2018, the first artist Arthur Jafa’s works most resonate with me. It was not his works that captured my interest, but his idea of creating a visual archive for black American life that made me chose him amongst everybody. I am not a political person, and especially coming from the outside, I do not know much about the black people and their history. However, I could vaguely relate to the discriminations they had gained and also the dignity black people have towards their culture. Korea, although it is hard to find a direct connection, have some similarities in how we were also neglected by the world. Even though Jafa’s visual style and the context behind his works are not close to my own interests, his ideas on documenting about his culture were something we had in common and motivated me to dig deeper into my own country’s story. Korea is in the middle of China and Japan, we are often conceived as a relatively powerless country. Even when China and Japan, falsely claim our history to be theirs, there is nothing much Korea can do, but stay silent. We stay quiet as we have done in the past, hoping that there would be someone out there to speak for us. Although, recently we are finally getting noticed by the global world, as a result of K-POP and North Korea, the world is still ignorant of our true identity and history. Because people still do not know our story, when a powerful country claims something over the truth we have no choice but to abide. This is not undermining my country, but simply speaking of the reality we face. One example of our powerless reality is the dispute between Korea and Japan over Dokdo Island located in the East Sea or the Sea of Japan. According to historical documents, from centuries ago, Dokdo was Korea’s land and also by the law Korea has the government control over the island. However, regardless of the truth Japan still argues that the land is theirs and educates people in Japan to believe so. And because Japan’s claim, many people around the world thinks that the island belongs to Japan. Also, there is a problem with the comfort woman of World War II, when Korea was colonised by Japan. To relieve the sexual desire of the Japanese soldiers, Japan forcibly took young girls and made them a sexual slave. Now, even when there is countless evidence of the foul actions, they refuse to admit to the truth and treat the young innocent victims as prostitutes who sold their body for money.
This reality is so sad and I guess this is how the black people might have felt as they were being discriminated. We cannot simply wait for somebody to know and understand our story. We need to speak up like and deliver our story to the world. And I think this is what Jafa’s doing for his people. So, like Jafa I want to make a visual archive of my country. I made a journal during the Korean War for my Time class and planned on making series on Korean history. This Bridge project will be a continuation of this project, as I plan to make a zine on Korean history. I want to continue documenting the history of Korea, creating a visual archive of my country’s untold history.
