Contested Memories, Precarious Apology: The Vietnam War in Contemporary Korean Art

ABSTRACT

This article examines art works that problematise the contested memories of the Vietnam War in South Korea. The collective memories of the Vietnam War in South Korea are contested by the official memory, constructed by the military regime, and the counter-memories, generated by activists who call for Korea to apologise to the Vietnamese people for the atrocities committed by Korean soldiers. IM Heung-soon’s publication This War (2009) and the single-channel video Reborn II (2018) present memories of South Korean veterans and Vietnamese rape victims. Kim Seokyung and Kim Eunsung’s statue Vietnam Pieta (2015–2016) was installed in Vietnam and Korea as a gesture of apology for Korean soldiers’ rape and murder of Vietnamese women and children. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’ concept of collective memories and Jacques Derrida’s conditional apology, this article examines how these art projects represent the contested memories of the Vietnam War in Korea and the conditional apology suggested by Korean activism, relating them to the redress movements of historical justice for wartime atrocities in a transnational context. Analyses of these artworks suggest aesthetic, ethical and political limitations and possibilities in representing memories of wartime sexual violence and (un)conditional apologies in visual art.

KEYWORDS:

• Vietnam War
• IM Heung-soon
• Vietnam Pieta
• memory
• apology
• historical justice
• South Korea

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks the artists IM Heung-soon, Kim Seokyung and Kim Eunsung, and the activists of the Korea–Vietnam Peace Foundation, including Ku Su-jeong, Kwon Hyunwoo and Chun My Hoa, for their interviews and support for this research. The author also thanks the special issue editors, Dr Hong Kal and Dr Jooyeon Rhee, Dr Abidin Kusno for his insightful comments during the workshop with the special issue team, and the two anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved this manuscript.

Notes

1. While South Korea participated in the Vietnam War as an ally of the United States, North Korea was also involved in the war as an ally of North Vietnam. This article focusses on South Korea, so I use “Korea” to refer to South Korea, unless otherwise specified.

2. For Korean to English romanisation, I follow the New Romanisation system (2000) as a general rule. In keeping with the system, for the names of people and organisations mentioned in this article that do not fully comply with the new system, I follow their preferences. In terms of the order of surname, for Koreans who practise in Korea, I write their last name prior to first name, following the Korean standard. For those who practise in North America, I use their first name prior to last name, following the North American standard.

3. Most of the atrocities were committed after the Tet Offensive (New Year Offensive, so called because it started from the Lunar New Year in 1968), during which North Vietnam attacked the American embassy in Saigon and US military bases in puppet cities and towns, including Huế and Đà Nẵng. As post-ambush retaliatory acts, the Korean army also slaughtered unarmed civilians in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất on 12 February, and in Ha My on 25 February 1968 (Koh, 2015; Kwon, 2006; Park, 2015, pp. 96–103).

4. Kim Seokyung joined the trip with her husband, Kim Eunsung, again in 2015.

5. All interviews were conducted by the author in Seoul. The author interviewed Kim Eunsung on 25 July 2018; IM on 20 May 2019; Ku on 29 May 2019; and Kim Seokyung on 4 June 2019.

6. The activism was initially led by Nawa Uri and is now continued by several groups, including A–MAP and the Korea–Vietnam Peace Foundation.

Additional information

Funding

This research was generously supported by the Faculty of Research and Graduate Studies Travel Grant at the University of Alberta, the researcher residency programme of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Korea, and the junior fellowship programme of Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies at Seoul National University. This work was also supported by the Core University Programme for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2018-OLU-2250001).