Most Americans think of the U.S. conflict with Japan and Korea as history, but the Watson Institute's exhibit "Wars Unfinished: U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa and Korea" shows that the friction in these places did not end after World War II.
The exhibit, which was originally displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, features the works of one Japanese and three Korean photographers. Because all four artists are natives of the areas they photographed, they intimately understand the issues surrounding the military bases, giving their work a unique depth.
Artist Mao Ishikawa of Okinawa said she hoped some of this understanding would rub off on any Americans who saw the photographs.
"The main purpose is that we all wanted American people to know about American military presence in Okinawa and Korea," Ishikawa said through translator Reiko Maeda, a student at University of Massachusetts, Boston.
"Many Americans don't know what's happening in and around military bases in Okinawa and Korea," Ishikawa continued.
Her photographs and those of her colleagues depict two major themes surrounding the bases: life and protest.
Each artist's collection contained several photographs documenting the daily lives of Koreans or Okinawans, lives that would be completely ordinary were it not for the twist of U.S. influence.
Ishikawa displayed three photographs of Okinawan women with their American husbands and biracial children. In these photographs, the women look content, as though life on the American military bases were not a great burden for them.
South Korean artist Lee Yongnam, on the other hand, depicted the disturbance occupation has caused to everyday life: His photographs show citizens trying to cross the street in front of U.S. tanks and Koreans surveying land that has been desolated by bombs.
The pictures of protest and suffering command the attention and evoke emotional response in the viewer.
Ishikawa treats the subject of protest with subtlety and quiet respect both for the protesters and viewers. Her soft, low-contrast black-and-white photographs portray groups of people holding hands as they stand outside army bases to protest the new construction on Japanese soil. They show local Okinawans gazing at beautiful stretches of land soon to be in the hands of Americans.
Her technique incites sympathy and compassion in the viewer - everyone can recognize the emotions of longing, frustration and desperation that the subjects of the photographs express.
Ishikawa made it clear that the photographs were supposed to incite emotion, not just portray a scene objectively as a newspaper photograph would.
"Not only do we want to show the pictures to let people know about the reality, but also to tell our opinions," she said.
Yongnam also wanted to express his discontent with the American military bases through his photographs, but he took a completely different - though equally effective - approach.
His photographs, in full and unforgiving color, explicitly show the scenes of horror caused by American soldiers at military bases in Korea. One display in particular sends its message so strongly and bluntly that it is impossible for any viewer to forget.
The display, which contains five photographs, centers around one large photograph of two bodies lying on the side of a road, their heads blown open and brains splattered on the pavement.
To the left of this photograph are pictures of tanks and angry soldiers and a wife crying over her wounded husband. At the bottom right is a single photograph that at first seems to clash with the rest: It shows a very young Korean girl, dressed in mourning white, with an expression of uncomprehending grief. In the background, only a fuzzy blur of trees is visible. The photograph seems to say that nothing makes sense in a world with so much chaos, violence and excess of raw emotion.
The photographs seem harsh, but Yongnam insists that they are the only way to express his beliefs.
"I no longer want to take brutal pictures. I want to photograph beautiful ones, but till the end of American violence, till the days of real independence and peace ... my photographs will display nothing but sorrowful and angry people on the street raising an outcry," Yongnam wrote in his Artist's CV.
The photographs show that all of the artists want peace in their countries; they want real resolutions to conflicts that supposedly ended 60 years ago and that Americans no longer consider current events. Hosting the exhibit at the Watson Institute, which houses the Department of International Studies, is effective in reminding students that not all international news makes the front page of American newspapers.
"I'd like people to know another side of the conflict, not only in Iraq, but also in Okinawa and Korea," Ishikawa said.
EVENT INFO
"Wars Unfinished: U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa and Korea"Watson InstituteThrough Oct. 28Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
