"Comfort women" Selected for the cover page of poetry

Featured on the cover of Ordinary Misfortunes by Emily Jungmin Yoon
https://www.tupelopress.org/product/ordinary-misfortunes-emily-jungmin-yoon/

Ordinary Misfortunes by Emily Jungmin Yoon featuring artwork Comfort Women by Jaclyn Bae

Cover artwork for Ordinary Misfortunes (Tupelo Press)

Comfort Women by Jaclyn Bae — hemp Hanbok artwork reflecting memory and resilience Distressed hemp Hanbok artwork symbolizing historical memory and endurance by Jaclyn Bae

© Jaclyn Bae 2025

Comfort Women | Hemp Hanbok Series

The work “Comfort Women” is created using hemp, a traditional Korean fiber often used for ceremonial or ritual garments. Hemp is coarse and weighty—its physical presence carries a sense of solemnity and remembrance that felt essential to this work.

This piece responds to the histories of young women who experienced profound hardship during the Pacific War era. While the details of that time are deeply painful, my intention is not to portray the violence itself, but to reflect on resilience, dignity, and the lasting imprint of memory.

I burned, cut, stitched, and distressed the hemp Hanbok, allowing each mark to act as a metaphor for wounds that were endured yet survived. The rough texture of hemp became a powerful medium for expressing themes of trauma, endurance, and the fragile strength held within historical memory.

A deeply personal moment shaped this work: the average age of many victims was around fourteen—the same age as my daughter at the time. She wore the Hanbok for a quiet photographic documentation, not as reenactment, but as a symbolic bridge between past and present, honoring the lives of those whose stories must not fade.

Through this artwork, I hope to hold space for remembrance and to reflect on how art can transform collective pain into something that invites empathy, contemplation, and healing.


### **The Convergence of Art, Testimony, and Historical Trauma**


This unique collaboration—the **fiber art** piece serving as the cover for Emily Jungmin Yoon’s poetry collection, *Ordinary Misfortunes*—creates a powerful dialogue between visual and literary narratives of historical trauma. The artwork, part of the artist's Hanbok Series, utilizes the traditional Korean garment, the **Hanbok**, which has historically served as a **symbol of cultural resistance** during times of oppression. By rendering this symbolic garment in fiber media related to the **"comfort women"** issue, the piece transforms clothing into a **vessel for collective memory** and an archive of fragmented pasts.


Yoon's poetry, acclaimed for blending **documentary precision with impassioned witness**, confronts the sexual violence against women, particularly the history of the comfort women. Critics note that the poems often employ **irony**, juxtaposing these atrocities with the term "ordinary misfortune" to underscore the tragic normalization of such violence. The cover art acts as a **visual testimonial**, creating an immediate, arresting presence that forces the reader to acknowledge the gravity of the subject before opening the book. This synergy of contemporary fiber art and critical poetry amplifies the voices of an often-overlooked history and insists on the **enduring impact of the past** on the present.


🌿 Explore More Art Series by Jaclyn Bae

© Jaclyn Bae 2025 · All rights reserved

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Over the Hill Series I, II, III

Image
Over the Hill I Over the Hill II Over the Hill III Over the Hill Series (I–III) The “Over the Hill I–III” series is created with hand-dyed fabrics and mixed media, developed through a slow, layered process of coloring, washing, cutting, and composing textiles. Each piece captures the feeling of climbing a windy hill — pushing forward with effort, then pausing at the peak where a quiet sense of emptiness meets clarity. This work reflects on the human journey: the ascent, the labor, the moments of reflection, and the recognition that much of what we hold onto is temporary. The transparent layers and muted tones visualize the tension between weight and impermanence, suggesting that meaning often reveals itself at the edges of stillness and loss. Through this series, I invite viewers to consider their own passages — the hills they have climbed, the efforts m...
Read more

Art works-Window Installation

Image
Window Series — Light, Memory, and Connection Textile and mixed-media window installations exploring the shifting boundaries between the inner and outer worlds by Jaclyn Bae . A window is more than an opening—it is a threshold between what is seen and what is felt. Using transparent silk, denim, handmade paper, natural branches, and suspended geometric forms, the Window Series visualizes memory, emotional landscapes, and the quiet presence of light. Each piece stands at the border between interior and exterior spaces, revealing how light, shadow, and time transform our perception. As viewers move, the works shift—mirroring the changing layers of life itself. Window Installation I — Tree & Growth Rings Created for a deck window using gray transparent silk, this installation integrates a hand-cut black-nylon tree with circular denim forms stitched in vibrant threads. The round patterns echo tree rings —the years...
Read more

Harmony Series II, V | Solitude and Memory | Jaclyn Bae Fiber Art

Image
Harmony Series · Denim Works Harmony Series II, V — Stillness, Solitude, and Memory Fiber & Mixed-Media Works in Denim by Jaclyn Bae The Harmony Series explores quietness, inner balance, and emotional transformation through the tactile language of denim. Made from worn jeans and softened garments, each piece carries traces of daily life — creases, faded tones, and subtle imperfections. Through bleaching, cutting, layering, and hand-stitching, the familiar fabric transforms into meditative compositions about memory, stillness, and renewal. ### **Conceptual Analysis: Hand-Stitching as Meditative Practice** This series masterfully translates the personal pursuit of "Stillness, Solitude, and Memory" into a tangible artistic practice, placing it within the discourse of **Slow Stitching and Mindful Art**. The core act of **hand-stitching** is not mer...
Read more