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Tears from the past | A Kerckhoff Art Gallery exhibit titled “Forgotten Terror” explo

If there’s one potential misconception UCLA alumnus Jean Chung wants to shake off, it’s that “Forgotten Terror,” the art exhibit she helped organize, treads on old ground. Her concern rests on the fact the exhibit is related to wartime atrocities committed decades ago during World War II.

But consider one display by photographer Cheol Hoon Ham, showing a graying Korean man weeping, with a message running across the picture that reads “Nippon changed my DNA.” The picture is pristinely shot with luminous colors, a sharp contrast from the grainy black and white shots commonly associated with the past era.

The photographs in the exhibit were taken this past summer, pushing the issues of “Forgotten Terror” squarely into current times. Opening today and running for five days at Kerckhoff Hall Art Gallery, the collection of works was brought together to show that the aftereffects of many wartime atrocities still haven’t gone away.

The exhibit, co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for Korean Studies and the Alliance to Preserve the History of World War II in Asia-Los Angeles (ALPHA-LA), features photographs by Ham, paintings by a former “comfort woman” and the screening of two documentaries called “A Forgotten People” and “Silence Broken.”

Together they help reveal the lingering effects of Japanese conscription from the end of the 1930s to the end of World War II, which resulted in forced labor for more than 10 million men from occupied territories in the Pacific Rim.

The exhibit also deals with the approximately 200,000 women who were forced into sex slavery during this time period. A number of groups have been calling for an apology and compensation for the atrocities, but cases have been stalled in court. Most recently, a Washington, D.C. appellate court dismissed a class action suit filed by 15 former “comfort women,” claiming that the suit wasn’t within its jurisdiction.

According to Chung, the purpose of the exhibit is two-fold.

“Increasing public awareness is the first thing,” she said. “But we also want the students and faculty to have a chance to relate these issues to the current day. We are struggling with war in the beginning of the 21st century, but the victims of the 20th century have problems that still haven’t been solved. I’d like to provide a chance for everyone to think about the historical lessons we can take from this.”

Chung did her master’s and Ph.D. coursework at UCLA from 1986 to 1993, during which she studied European history, so her decision to debut the exhibit on campus is fitting. But she also attributes the exhibit’s prominent debut to the assistance of East Asian languages and cultures Professor John Duncan, who serves as director for the UCLA Center for Korean Studies.

“He understood this issue, so we didn’t have to really convince him,” Chung said.

Chung, who travels to Japan and Korea three to four times a year to help organize conferences and strategy meetings, hopes to keep increasing awareness in the United States by taking the exhibit to other schools around the nation.

“We believe that these kinds of issues are lingering just because the public doesn’t really know about it,” she said.

“Forgotten Terror” will be on display at Kerckhoff 214 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day until Nov. 22.