Past to Present: Performance Art by Shimada Yoshiko and Ito Tari, on Imperial Military Sexual Violence

Abstract

This thesis explores how two contemporary Japanese feminist artist-activists, Tari Ito and Yoshiko Shimada, use performance art as a tool to address their identities intersected with issues of Japanese imperial and colonial violence, especially regarding the history of militarized sexual slavery systems that the Japanese Imperial Army implemented on occupied territories before and during WWII. Although their styles and representational strategies differ, both artists position their own bodies in this dialogue, urging viewers to re-remember history in ways that allow the artists themselves and audiences to recognize that these histories are being lived out and repeated in contemporary society. Through this thesis, I discuss the artists’ performance pieces related to these issues in order to explore three central questions: How is performance art a critical methodological tool for creating dialogue with audiences that shift feelings of apathy into empathy around colonial violence? How do Shimada and Ito ethically position themselves in relation to the sensitive subjects of comfort women and their lived traumas? What are the obstacles Japanese women artists face and have historically faced in representing transnational issues in their work, particularly when focusing on the history of comfort women? I argue that through performance art, the artists and their audiences practice witnessing – being present to the ongoing traumas of comfort women and the perpetuation of military sexual violence.