Art for art's sake is not the maxim of an international group of artists using their works to "interrupt" the trauma of the "comfort women" forced into sexual slavery at Japanese military brothels during the war.
Central to the theme of "Trauma, Interrupted," a contemporary art exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila by female artists from six countries, including Japan, is the concept of using art to salve the pain caused by sexual slavery and violence against women.
"We are not dredging up the past. We are coming to terms with a range of traumas to find healing," explained exhibition curator Flaudette May Datuin.
She said most of the artworks center on women who had kept secret painful experiences inflicted by the Imperial Japanese Army more than 60 years ago.