Confronting Violence Against Women: The Artistic Practices of Adriana Cristina Corral and Jungeun Lee

Abstract

This narrative inquiry focuses on the artistic practices of two contemporary artists who research acts of violence against women in their home communities and purposefully (re)stage items from visual culture to create art that (re)members and pays homage to victims of social injustice. Artist Adriana Cristina Corral examines feminicidios, the murder of Latinas along the U.S./Mexico border, while artist Jungeun Lee travels back to her homeland of South Korea to unpack the story of a girl forced to service Japanese soldiers as a comfort woman1 during World War II. The conceptual framework of this study references memory research and how our thoughts and actions in the present are social (re)constructions of the past. Although geographic boundaries of exploration differ in the work of each artist, as well as social and historical contexts impacting the lives of the women they research, a common thread is their dedication to reveal specific shameful secrets of the past that are still manifest in contemporary society, whether publicly acknowledged or swept under the rug.