She was, at first glance, expressionless, but her smooth facial features belied fearlessness and fortitude. Her straight, chin-length hair was neatly cropped. Dressed in a stiff kimono and entirely covered in gold paint to imitate the sheen of buffed bronze, she sat tall and straight-backed, staring directly ahead. Her mouth was covered with tape. Her hands were folded in her lap. Beside her, there was another sitting woman.
This performance by Japanese artist Yoshiko Shimada, Becoming a Statue of a Japanese Comfort Woman, took place in Los Angeles on February 18, 2018, in an event that also included another performance, Against Forgetting, by the feminist, artist-activist collective Tomorrow Girls Troop. For an hour, Shimada sat next to a 1,100-pound bronze statue of a Korean girl wearing a hanbok—a traditional dress—in…