Memorials’ politics: Exploring the material rhetoric of the Statue of Peace

David Shim

doi:10.1177/17506980211024328

Abstract

This paper discusses the material rhetoric of the Statue of Peace built in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, South Korea. Installed in 2011 to commemorate so-called “comfort women”—the former sex slaves forced to work in brothels during Korea’s occupation by the Empire of Japan—, several identical-looking copies of the statue have since spread throughout the country and beyond. While many observers have noted the symbolic politics of the sculpture, I argue for taking into account its material dimension too—with the aim of furthering our understanding of how commemorative practices are enabled by mnemonic installations. Building on the scholarship that has addressed the rhetoric of objects and places of remembrance, I ask how the statue acts on and engages with its viewers. Among others, site visits, observations, own experiences, interviews, and visual documentation serve as the basis of the discussion.

Highlights

This paper discusses the material rhetoric of the so-called Statue of Peace—a memorial intended to commemorate the women who were forced into sexual slavery during Korea’s occupation by the Empire of Japan
Erected first in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, in 2011, several identical-looking copies of the statue have since spread throughout the country and beyond
The empty chair of the Statue of Peace, inheres an opposite material rhetoric: it needs to be filled; something which becomes striking if, as mentioned above, one thinks of the memorial’s copies, which have been placed inside public transportation buses in Seoul

Summary

Introduction

This paper discusses the material rhetoric of the so-called Statue of Peace—a memorial intended to commemorate the women who were forced into sexual slavery during Korea’s occupation by the Empire of Japan (see Image 1 below). Keywords “comfort women”, empty chair, material rhetoric, public memorials, public memory, South Korea, Statue of Peace, statue wars

Results

Conclusion