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Towards the last two months of my last visit to India in the spring of 2012, I encountered the Tibetan community in exile in India experiencing painful news of their people self-immolating in fire one after another in China-occupied Tibet. My experiences in the past visits in India (drawing a cremation site in Varanasi, documenting fire pits, cremation alters, and contemplating on life and death around fire) synchronized with this particular movement, an extreme way of ‘offering’ their bodies to ‘fire’ for asking freedom and peace.I could not help drawing large and small drawings as emotional response and with a sense of mourning.

After coming back to Vancouver, the self-immolation kept happening and I felt that my personal and professional task is not finished.

I have come back to India to continue to document and draw under the same theme. tomoyoihaya@hotmail.com

17 October 2020

The Unforgettable Faces : Artist Notes on Ms. Yoonmi Jeon and the work. Title: Peace River – Bridge – Reaching out hands Tributes to (Ms) Yoomi Jeon. Prayers to peace and reunification in the Korean Peninsula









 From the top:  
diagram for an installation as I could not go to Korea to do so. 

Production in progress in March and in July 2020.  It took 6 months to complete.

Details of Peace River

Lightful Peninsula ( a smaller work) 

A detail shot of the smaller Korean Peninsula, "Lightful Peninsula" has 5 bridges on it. Each bridge was drawn by my Korean friends in Korea and in Vancouver, printed out on Korean paper in small scale, and was laminated onto the map around the "38".  Bridges for a symbol of the ultimate reunification. 

Bak, Sosan
Choi, Sinae
Goo, Sooyeon
Lee, Myoung Jae
Pheon, Solan 
Goo, Sooyeon


I attach my artist note below: Artist Notes on Ms. Yoonmi Jeon and the work.

_______________________________________

Artist Notes on Ms. Yoonmi Jeon and the work.

Title: Peace River – Bridge – Reaching out hands
Tributes to (Ms) Yoomi Jeon (and prayers to peace and reunification in the Korean Peninsula.)

In the spring of 2020, Ms. Youngme Moon, the chief curator at Lee Hanyeol Memori-al Museum, sent me the following description, “The person about whom you are making art is Ms. Jung Yoomi, a Korean American, who devoted her life to bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula by bridging the gap between South and North Korea”.
In addition, I obtained photos and write ups from Ms. Moon and Mr. Ik Tae Kim (Ms. Jung’s friend) and a speech by Mr. Klein, Ms. Jeon’s partner. For almost 6 months, I lived closely with these photos and writings in my studio and from this experience I grew to feel that she was an open, warm hearted, passionate woman who was both empathetic and compassionate and possessed a strong sense of justice and a will-ingness to stand up for injustice.
Because of the pandemic and the lock down, I spent time by myself reading about her and imagining her nature and life, and studying about Korean War in depth.

To understand her life was to understand the Korean War and the Japanese occupa-tion of the Korean Peninsula in 1910 and all of the pain that the Korean people went through. It was brutal and merciless. While reading and talking with Korean friends about the Japanese occupation and the Korean war, I became sorrowful and heavy hearted with a strong sense of guilt about what my mother land had done to the people and land of the Korean Peninsula. Often I could not stop sobbing. It was a difficult process emotionally, mentally and physically to make art about her life of activism for her people and country because it was a tragedy caused by my country.

While contemplating how to represent her life and the theme of peace and reunifi-cation into a work of art and out of feeling such pain, the colour of white and a map of Korea as Jogappo and bridges transpired.

White to me is the colour of peace. Also, I read more than once, that Korean people are known to love the colour of white. Since I was young I have loved Jogappo, a traditional Korean patchwork, created by a member in each family as a pure art form and a symbol of everyday living. Making a map of the Korean Peninsula in the same manner as a Jogappo felt like a symbol of unity of many lives. Bridges came to mind as they can bring people on two sides together.

My initial vision was to have the Korean Peninsula, her portrait in Hanbok and her holding small bridges in her hands.

Later hands became an important symbol because of a Korean friend’s words. He expressed to me, “ What we need more is to touch (embrace) each other and hold each other’s hands, more than bridges.” I never forgot his face when he expressed his feelings so in end I added many cut out hands that reach out from south and north Korea to touch each other in the river.

Lastly a river of white waves, came to me after my Japanese friend introduced me to a song called “Imjin River” sung in both in Hanguel and Japanese. This song was about yearning for reuniting with loved one, wishing their dreams to the Imjin River of clear water.












































The 6th Unforgettable Faces@Lee Hanyeol Memorial Museum "Peace and Reunification", Seoul, Republic of Korea: September 24 to December 31 2020




 


Lee Hanyeol Memorial Museum in Seoul, Republic of Korea is opening an annual thematic exhibition called 'The 6th Unforgettable Faces'. I am humbled to be included in this exhibition as one of 5 artists.

Every year, under a theme, the museum chose 5 to 6 artists and Koreans who devoted their lives for Korean societies. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean War and they set a theme 'Peace and Reunification" and chose activists who spent their lives for peaceful resolutions in Korean Peninsula.


Five 'faces' are:
Kim Sun Myong
Jeong Soon Deck
Lim Mi Young
Jeong Yoomi
Kim Seung Gyo

Five artists are:
Sun Mu
Noh Won Hee
Kim Ok Sun
Ihaya, Tomoyo
Kim Ji Gon

Lee Han Yeol Memorial Museum is a museum to remember and celebrate the life and the heroic death of student Lee Han Yeol. He was hit by tear gas canister in June 1987. This incident sparked the June Democratic Uprising bringing democracy to South Korea. Please visit our website to learn more about it at www.leememorial.or.kr/?tpf=memorial/face_list

Here is a person for whom I made art works for, title and a background of her. 

Title: Peace River – Bridge – Reaching out hands
Tributes to (Ms) Yoomi Jeon (and prayers to peace and reunification in the Korean Peninsula.)

"In the spring of 2020, Ms. Youngme Moon, the chief curator at Lee Hanyeol Memori-al Museum, sent me the following description, “The person about whom you are making art is Ms. Jung Yoomi, a Korean American, who devoted her life to bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula by bridging the gap between South and North Korea”.
In addition, I obtained photos and write ups from Ms. Moon and Mr. Ik Tae Kim (Ms. Jung’s friend) and a speech by Mr. Klein, Ms. Jeon’s partner. For almost 6 months, I lived closely with these photos and writings in my studio and from this experience I grew to feel that she was an open, warm hearted, passionate woman who was both empathetic and compassionate and possessed a strong sense of justice and a will-ingness to stand up for injustice. "

Please see the details of the works on the next blog post.


note:

Through my works on Gwangju People’s Uprising, which were exhibited in Cheonan City and Gwangju in 2019, I was offered an opportunity to exhibit a work of art for this years ‘Unforgettable Faces’ at Lee Hanyeol Memorial Museum.

I feel humbled and grateful for this opportunity. My connection to Korea has been a journey, a path I never dreamt of, starting from an old cemetery in Gwangju two years ago leading to a pathway to this exhibition.