Experiences of Sexual Violence Are Connected
By Song Jin-hee
Published: November 7,
2016
Translated by Anastasia
Traynin
Though very far away, a survival of voices
I remember the voice of a woman speaking on the issue of sexual violence.
It was the memorial site for the Gangnam Station murder victim. After a few people had spoken, she grabbed
the microphone. There was unfathomable wailing from the first uttering of her long-swallowed words, followed by speaking about
personal experience of sexual violence. All throughout listening to her, my mind seemed to
collapse. As shameful as it was, up until hearing this woman’s voice, I had failed to think of sexual violence as my problem. I later wondered if I
hadn’t created a box for so-called
direct victims, and thought of myself as just a
person sympathetic to those within…
Ever since hearing the woman’s voice, big and small changes have wriggled
inside of me. A person who
says things that can’t be said, who can hear things that aren’t heard, who doesn’t just think
about taking action - I am becoming this person. Her voice still survives -
coming up from the bottom, haltingly searching for something during a long
journey, and heard even though it’s very far away.
The more a speaker is isolated due to society’s
lack of empathy in a certain area, the more he or she must fight. The same is true of sexual violence. One person’s
voice penetrating the accumulated prejudices -it
is not enough to simply call this “courage.” Also, we are living in an environment of latent sexual
violence.
“While you are not safe, I am not safe.” – Allen
Ginsberg, “Howl”
And so? From the middle of October, under hashtags about sexual
violence in literature, art, ottaku culture, film and other worlds of culture and art, the
voices of those directly affected started coming out and made me pay more
attention. I have had a long, active
background in film, fashion, photography, fine arts and other fields of culture
and art. The experiences that these women had to suffer through in the art
scene were not so different from the experiences that I came to suffer over
time. Wherever the place may be, the experience of sexual violence is
connected.
The free and
noble power called art
The sexual violence and harassment experiences from
the art world that are being shared
via Twitter seem to have an awful lot of things in common. Most notably, the hierarchy between the perpetrators
and the victims. It has become known that
Eun-gyo novelist Park Bum-shin committed acts of sexual harassment and
assault in the presence of female TV writers and fans. (The novel’s story of a
poet in his 70s having a forbidden erotic affair with a high school student was
made into the film Eungyo in 2012). The power to call an older woman “an old
Eun-gyo,” a younger woman “a young Eun-gyo” and naming all women as his
personal “Eun-gyo” is possible on account of being a man above middle age who also has built a brand as
a writer.
Additionally, it has come out that poet Bae Yong-jae, predictably under the pretext of teaching poetry,
made sexual comments and committed assault, targeting women in their teens and
twenties who thought of themselves as disciples.
In the case of sexual violence in the fine arts world, dozens of accusations of
sexual harassment have been made against Ilmin Museum of Art chief curator Ham Yeong-jun,
coming mostly from young artists starting out in their careers. (As of early
November, as a result of the allegations, Ham has resigned as curator of the
museum.) At this point, we can see the vertical structure of the culture
and arts world as one of the factors re-enforcing gender discrimination and
sexual violence.
 |
| New York, 1985. A poster made by the radical feminist group Guerilla Girls. |
As an example, the media artist group Mioon, made up of Moon Choi
and Min Kim,
have a piece in which they made a three dimensional map of the art world’s
network and influence. They said they came to make this piece as a way of
understanding the true nature of the art world’s “invisible wall,” something
that they continued to feel, even after coming back to Korea from Germany and
working like crazy. Through the map of this network, they say that the Korean
art world, with just one ever-stronger inner circle holding a monopoly, looks something
like chaebols’ honmaekdo (a
neologism that refers to the Korean conglomerates’ practice of building a stronger community through
marriage).
This kind of monopoly in the art world, made
visible through the work of the Mioon artist group, also renders young artists numb
to the necessity of sitting in someone’s lap and letting him rub your thighs,
as the cost for this sweet opportunity of “I will take care of you.” Is the free and noble sexual fantasy called art someone’s exclusive property?
Kicking the gaslighting
effect out of the art world
The part that must be highlighted by this case is
that, as female artists started to
reinterpret their personal experiences, they ignited a fire about sexual violence inside the culture and arts world. Since
objectification of women has become such a widespread daily occurrence, as
uncomfortable as it may be, it is also evidence that we have started looking
with sensitivity at things that are unbearable to speak about.
I think of this ignition as the starting point of the aggressive expulsion of “gaslighting”
(from the 1944 movie Gaslight, in which an inheritance-seeking husband
manipulates the situation and drives his wife into the mental hospital by
making her lose her sense of reality and judgment. A psychological term that
refers to one person wielding control over an unwitting other person, eventually leading to devastating
consequences) from
the culture and arts world.
Gaslighting in the art world goes like this. These
days, young artists often hold their first private exhibits in an unsupervised
alternative space. At the opening, their seniors from the fine arts world
attend the artist talk. As nerve-wracking as the first showing of an artwork
is, the artists are actually
having a hard time in another area. Starting with “I’m saying this because I care about you,”
the teachers and seniors go on with comments such as “You can’t show everything
at the first exhibit,” “You have to write your artist’s note like this,” “If
you want to be a better artist...” For an artist, the endless indoctrination
and brainwashing of “you have to do it like this,” under the guise of
“criticism,” makes the artist believe herself to be “supported.”
Those comments stop an artist from gaining autonomy. Men also take the superior position of “a good teacher
who will give opportunities” and control
artists by saying, “You have to have been with
a man to make art,” “You have to make yourself an opportunity, even if it’s by
sacrificing your body.” These are invisible
forms of violence that
make it possible to invade women’s bodies without their permission.
Painter Georgia O’Keefe said: “The men liked to
put me down as the best woman painter. I
think I am one of the best painters.” Let’s aggressively kick out the
never-ending adding of “woman” as a qualifier,
and other strategies of discriminating against women.
 |
| Correspondence, a video by Song Jin-hee. Speaking about art as labor, using written excerpts from artist Jo Eun-ji’s exhibition notes. |
Sexual violence_in_Busan_culture_and_art_world, Plotting a Change
The week-long flood of cases from the culture and
arts scene were mostly focused on Seoul.
Does this mean that there is no sexual violence in the culture and art scenes
of other regions? I felt a need to connect and get off my chest stories that
are mainly based on being active within the Busan culture and arts scene.
Taking this situation seriously, a group of us three visual artists came
together.
First of all, despite the occurrence of sexual
violence in the culture and arts scene, in Busan as elsewhere, we felt that the
problem not being officially dealt with stemmed from its lack of recognition as
a problem. We became furious at the state of silence. Within the Busan culture
and art scene’s narrow network and the people involved, merely talking about
sexual violence is a very scary thing. However, we gradually came to recognize
that just standing by was even scarier. Agreeing with each other that saying
and doing nothing meant no change could be made, we resolved to not turn away but to raise our voices, difficult as it may be.
Within this poor and weak world, we let out a
scream and built a small nest called #sexual_violence_in_busan_culture_and_arts_world (bit.ly/2fvLa0e). At first,
the page was about sharing our own stories. We wanted to
re-interpret and put into writing each artist’s example of experiencing sexual
violence within the Busan culture and arts world.
Group member Eun-ji spoke at length on the everyday
culture of sexual harassment. During an exhibition or residency, there is
casual eating and socializing with people at the after-party. In this kind of
setting, the women in attendance can hear judgments on their appearance,
lectures such as “A woman should look like a woman” and senseless jokes such as
“Honestly, I got a hard-on at the first sight of her.” She said that when these situations occur repeatedly, she
often feels overwhelmed with doubt about the art world, and it has a large
effect on her work.
As expected, another member, Eun-ju, pulled out a
similar story. Having recently received artist psychological counseling, she
spoke of learning about a great amount of rage that is rising among working
artists. She said that during
counseling, she came to realize that
she had turned the majority of issues into internal problems, because it is difficult to change rage that comes from
external sources. One part of this rage is the experiences women
have had to suffer within the vertical hierarchy of the art world.
When going to art school, some of the sayings most
often heard from seniors are “Becoming a female artist means having to give up
marriage,” “If you want to make an issue (be noticed) as a female artist, put naked people in your work,” “Use the time you would spend getting a manicure to work on your art instead,” and other
things like that. The many
discriminatory words, with no end in sight, are piling up and leaving us with
rage within our bones.
Through the process of writing about this rage, I
discovered threads that I hadn’t even thought about. The hands that
had been invading my body came from all over the place.
While working on movies, while learning photography, while working as a
stylist, while drinking with musicians that I liked, abuse of my body and these
women’s bodies had happened so easily. But it had been so difficult to talk with the other women about our mutually intersecting experiences.
We have not yet put a period at the end of our
words. We think about it as an endless
“rewriting” process. Finally sifting through
experiences that were so commonplace that we hadn’t looked at them closely
before, we are being reborn. After this, our lives have become a little
different. Our voices still survive - coming up
from the bottom, haltingly searching for something during a long journey, and
heard even though they’re very far away.
 |
| From the archive page exposing and demanding change in #sexual_violence_in_the_graphic_design_world ⓒ ask-answer-2016.info |
Record, and remember
In these dizzying times, I discovered the archive
page “After October 22, 2016, we record” (ask-answer-2016.info).
October 22 is the day when previously invisible cases of damage from
sexual violence in the culture and arts world were brought to the surface. It
is also the day when the blocked route to the gathering of women’s voices was
flung open. In order for these voices not to disappear, someone in the graphic design field started an archive.
It takes hundreds of women speaking out about their
individual experience for sexual violence in the art world to be recognized as
a problem. That shows
how few protective measures are in place in this sphere..
So let’s not go back to the time before October 22, 2016. Let’s not make anyone
repeat this same fight. Let’s each
leave our footprints. From this intense process, let’s make an even greater
change. As for the voices coming after October 22, 2016, let’s clearly remember
these marks that they are making.
Original Article: http://www.ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7652
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