LGF to host exhibit by activist-artist Yuna Shawver as part of a documentary film project
Caitlyn Jordan, a graduate student working with Land Grant Films, will host The War That Never Ended, a solo illustration exhibit created by Yuna Shawver’s at A1 Lab Arts gallery in Knoxville. The exhibit will open Friday, March 6 from 11 am — 7 pm and will run through the weekend.
The show will share the unique and powerful work of Shawver with the Knoxville community and serve as the culminating scene in Jordan’s documentary, Girl of Peace.
The film follows Korean-American artist, Shawver as she journeys through the United States and South Korea in order to create art depicting her interpretations of the history of the Korean comfort women, a group of 50,000 to 400,000 mostly Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery at the hand of the Japanese Imperial Army.
The comfort women have fought to be recognized as not only victims of war but also survivors of Japan’s war crimes. Shawver and the comfort women share a common theme: They are fighting to find their own voice in a world that forces identities on them. This film will document the complexities of being both Korean and American, a victim and a fighter, and what it means to be a woman throughout generations.
The War That Never Ended is Shawver’s plea for viewers to remember the comfort women’s suffering and to take a stand against human trafficking. The pieces in the exhibit were created during the production of the Girl of Peace documentary. Additionally, the exhibit and reactions to the art will be documented for the closing scenes of the film.
Yuna Shawver is a Korean-American freelance illustrator/animator currently studying painting and ceramics at Cypress Junior College in Cypress, CA. Her previous works have been featured both in international media as well as award-winning productions.
Shawver’s digital illustrations have been featured as two covers for WASD, an award-winning gaming magazine located in Munich, Germany. In collaboration with the editor-in-chief and other designers, she produced two realistic digital paintings as covers for Bookazine für Gameskultur.
To Shawver, the great thing about visual art is that it only takes a moment to rouse all sorts of feelings within the viewer. For more information, visit Shawver’s website.
Caitlyn Jordan is a graduate student currently studying at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Journalism and Electronic Media program in the College of Communication and Information. Her research has focused on critical feminism with a focus on women in war. When Jordan studied abroad in South Korea during her undergraduate career she was introduced to the Korean comfort women movement on a class field trip to one of the Wednesday Demonstrations. From that moment on Jordan was determined to bring more awareness to the movement in the United States.
Land Grant Films is a documentary program housed in the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The program’s mission is to provide University of Tennessee students with real-world experience in documentary storytelling while providing local non-profit organizations with videos assets that can be used to raise awareness and funds. For more information, visit our website.
