Seeking Truth: Tales of the Comfort Women
Seeking Truth: Tales of the Comfort Women is a three part project, focused on sharing the personal stories of comfort women and their journey in fighting for justice. This includes the Breaking Free zine, Ourstory Poster, and seven unique art lesson guides for grades 6-12. This project was made possible through the inaugural Comfort Women Research and Creative Scholarship Small Grant Awards program.
Breaking Free Zine
“Breaking Free” is 20-paged digital zine based on Jan Ruff-O’Herne’s memoir “50 Years of Silence.” Quan’s drawings detail the years before, during, and after Imperial Japanese occupation of Indonesia as Jan fights for her life as a comfort woman.
Uplifting Collective Memory Ourstory Poster
Uplifting Collective Memory poster is inspired by artist, Quan’s first City Hall meeting for the building of the Comfort Women memorial. Privately funded by the Comfort Women Justice Coalition, the organization raised $205,000 to make and install the statue. This poster aims to introduce participants to the history of comfort women and the fight it took to get to the present.
For a free digital copy, please see our Interdisciplinary Lesson Guides and get your poster today!
The Comfort Women Interdisciplinary Lesson Guide
This unique lesson guides will be catered for middle school and high school students. Using art as a way to understand war, imperialism, and violence, our curriculum collaborators are artist/educator, Katie Quan, saxophonist/composer/educator, Francis Wong, dancer, Flora Kim , and dancer/poet, Lynn Huang.
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MAY 19 & MAY 20, 2023
Remembrance Rising: In Tribute to the World War II Comfort Women
Remembrance Rising: In Tribute to the World War II Comfort Women is an interdisciplinary work featuring poetry, dance, and music in dialogue.
Remembrance Rising: In Tribute to the World War II Comfort Women is an interdisciplinary work featuring poetry, dance, and music in dialogue with the public art piece Comfort Women Column of Strength Memorial in St. Mary’s Square in San Francisco Chinatown.
Featuring composer/saxophonist Francis Wong, dancer and poet Lynn Huang, dancer Flora Hyoin Kim Han, tuba performer William Roper, violinist Sandy Poindexter, and multi-percussionist Karen Stackpole. Parallel to the performing arts work is a companion zine set, created and illustrated by Katie Quan, focusing on the experiences of comfort women, Jan Ruff-O’Herne and Maria Rosa Henson. Both projects are made possible through the inaugural Comfort Women Research and Creative Scholarship Small Grant Awards program. Presented by Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center, and Lenora Lee Dance.