YESTERYARD / 2020

On the anniversary of South Korea’s Independence Day, 15 August 2020, a group of artists made a socially distanced live art installation at the Leith studio Quality Yard. Edinburgh-based Korean-born visual artist Sejin Moon (MFA Photography) invited artists and a writer to join a visual dialogue. Through the day, the artists collective made a live art installation recalling Korean “comfort women” forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII.

The installations referenced a statue installed in 2017 in the city of Busan, South Korea depicting a life-sized girl in traditional dress and bare feet sitting on a chair, representing the plight of the “comfort women”.

The artists intend to commemorate the normalisation of rape in wartime, centered on female sexual slavery, bringing attention to the silencing of women throughout the world.

The artists including Lauren McLaughlin, Zoe Atherfold, Andy Cumming, Sylwia Kowalczyk, and Louise Omer created a black and white mural, a collage “wall of comfort”, printmaking on scarves and other soft fabrics, also a video projection and a final photographic self-portrait by Moon herself.