Photographer’s Portraits of ‘Comfort Women’ Confront Japan’s Colonial Past

Tsukasa Yajima’s images of consolation ladies, women compelled into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Military, underline the significance of remembering atrocities of the previous.

Between 1932 and 1945, Japan compelled ladies from occupied Korea to change into army intercourse slaves and the darkish legacy stays politically divisive to this present day.

Yajima, who’s Japanese himself, set about to win the belief of survivors by going to reside and work within the Home of Sharing, a nursing residence in Seoul, South Korea, the place the consolation ladies reside.

Yajima tells PetaPixel that it was not simple to achieve the aged ladies’s confidence owing to him being a photographer, a person, and Japanese.

“It was not straightforward firstly. One survivor, particularly, was strongly towards my keep within the Home of Sharing as a workers member,” explains Yajima.

“So, I attempted to be taught the Korean language as rapidly as attainable in order that I might discuss along with her about my concepts regarding historical past, politics, and so forth.”

Yajima says that when he studied historical past in Tokyo he discovered from international college students Japan’s “untaught trendy historical past” and have become thinking about his nation’s colonialism and conflict crimes.

Finally, Yajima started to speak with the skeptical girl who eventaully accepted him as a member of the family within the Home of Sharing.

“She has dementia at present however can nonetheless acknowledge me precisely nicely, that’s my honor,” he provides.

Taking pictures Portraits of Consolation Girls

Yajima shot the images in black and white on a Hasselblad movie digital camera with an 80mm lens utilizing simply pure mild. He modified a small storage room right into a darkish room within the Home of Sharing the place he might develop movies and makes prints.

“They weren’t affected person and I needed to wait till they mentioned to me, ‘Hey, do you wish to take my picture now?’” He says.

“Taking pictures length was shorter than 5 minutes largely at every session. Typically I used to be allowed to take solely a few photos. The digital camera needed to be ready prematurely and saved by my facet within the workplace.”

Yajima says that the objective of his images is to attach the consolation ladies survivors to trendy societies.

“Sexualised violence towards ladies in conflict or battle areas is occurring even at present, constantly,” he says.

“I hope consolation ladies historical past is accepted as instance amongst our societies to cease violence towards ladies sooner or later.”

Yajima as a result of thinking about images as an expression after visiting an exhibiton by Sebastião Salgado.

“It was vital for me to consider myself as a ‘Japanese man’ who grew up in a patriarchal society,” he says.

“Consolation ladies historical past and its problem present me numerous vital themes. As it isn’t solely a conflict crime, but additionally issues of colonialism, racism, army tradition, misogyny, revisionism, and denialism of historical past.”

Bone of Rivalry

The difficulty of consolation ladies remains to be contentious between South Korea and Japan with the latter generally reluctant to completely admit duty for its conflict crimes.

An estimated 200,000 ladies, a big portion of which had been Korean, had been compelled into brothels to be consolation ladies for Japanese troops. Consolation ladies is a translation of the Japanese phrase ianfu, which accurately means comforting, consoling girl.

Yajima is at the moment displaying his images in Gwangju, South Korea in an exhibit entitled Put It Down, Bear in mind.

Extra of his Yajima’s will be discovered on his website.

Picture credit: All images by Tsukasa Yajima.