Held on April 13, 2016
In this event, Dr. Jimin Kim and Artist Chang-Jin Lee introduce the topic of sexual enslavement during World War II. Focusing on the experiences of “comfort women,” they attend to the more than 200,000 Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Dutch, and Filipino women who were kidnapped or deceived and forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. Dr. Kim, formerly Program Director of the Asian Social Justice Internship Program co-hosted by the Korean American Civic Empowerment (KACE) and the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College, is an expert in modern Korean history and the history of U.S.-Korea-Japan relations. Artist Chang-Jin Lee is a Korean-born visual artist whose documentary film, Comfort Women Wanted, features interviews from “comfort women” survivors and a former Japanese soldier.
Dr. Jimin Kim was the former Program Director of the Asian Social Justice Internship Program, a program co-hosted by the Korean American Civic Empowerment (KACE) and the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College, CUNY. She specializes in modern Korean history and the history of U.S.-Korea-Japan relations. Her Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia University, titled "Representing the Invisible: The American Perceptions of Colonial Korea (1910-1945),” addresses how interaction among the U.S., Japan, and Korea during Korea's colonial period under Japan influenced American policy-making toward Korea in the postwar period. Her research interests include modernization, cultural history of foreign relations, and comparative history of decolonization process.
Artist Chang-Jin Lee is a Korean-born visual artist based in New York City. Her documentary film, Comfort Women Wanted, is based on her interviews in 7 countries with Asian and European "comfort women" survivors, and a former Japanese soldier. The project has been presented internationally including as Public Art throughout New York City in collaboration with The NYC Department of Transportation’s Urban Art Program, as well as at Hauser & Wirth Gallery in New York, The Incheon Women Artists' Biennale in Korea, The Comfort Women Museum in Taiwan, 1a Space in Hong Kong, The Kunstmuseum Bonn in Germany, and The State Museum of Gulag in Russia. Her work received media attention from The NY Times, The Huffington Post, NPR, and The BBC, among many. She is a recipient of numerous awards including The New York State Council on the Arts Grant, The Korean Ministry of Gender Equality Award, and The Asian Cultural Council Fellowship. She has presented lectures and screenings at many universities including Columbia University, UC Berkeley, and Stanford University.
The DOT Urban Art Program presented artist Chang-Jin Lee's work "Comfort Women Wanted" on one of the DOT Urban Art Program's art display structures in a temporary plaza located at 14th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan for one month starting on May 6, 2013. Based on the artist's interaction with comfort women survivors and a former Japanese solider from WWII, "Comfort Women Wanted" sheds light on one of the largest cases of female trafficking in the 20th century. During WWII, young women from Asia and the Netherlands were kidnapped, imprisoned and forced to cater to the needs of the Japanese Imperial Army. By some estimates, only 30% of these women survived the "comfort stations." For the project "Comfort Women Wanted," ad-like posters depict black & white portraits of Asian comfort women survivors. The title and text reference Asian newspapers' comfort women advertisements that were circulated during the war. The project promotes awareness of the comfort women, some of whom are still alive today, and examines a history that has been largely forgotten. (Flickr)
Daughters of the Dragon by 
The Rape of Nanking by 
Fifty Years of Silence by 
Comfort Women by