From “Comfort Women Deal” By Sukjong Hong, 2016
I’m looking forward to hosting Sukjong Hong this week, as she will be visiting from New York as a guest speaker in my second-year “writing geography” class at UTSC. She will also lead a workshop on the St. George campus about comics and visual culture on Tuesday, Feb 9.
Here are some links to Sukjong’s comics work.
- The ‘Comfort Women Deal’ between South Korea and Japan: Six alternative views (February 2, 2016)
- ‘This only happened because people organized.’ Nail salon workers speak out after NYT exposé (August 24, 2015)
- Left in the dark: Inside the buildings of Chinatown after Hurricane Sandy (November 27, 2012)
208N at Munk School of Global Affairs
1 Devonshire Pl, Toronto, ON Toronto, ON M5S3K7
“Why draw a story? How can visual language and representation upend mainstream conventions about immigrant workers, women, and other groups, or tell stories that might otherwise be hard to communicate? How does drawing and graphic storytelling go where others cannot go?
Comics have long had a place in underground subcultures, exploring taboo subjects with a subversive flair – but they also have an increasing role in sharing the experiences of those who might not want to be caught on camera, or whose stories defy traditional media tools.
Sukjong Hong, a New York-based writer and artist who works in the medium of comics, among others, will share the process behind making comics and graphic journalism about worker organizing, Cold War myths, and immigrant communities. She will also share examples of independent South Korean comic artists whose work addresses displacement, labor rights, and militarism in social movement contexts in South Korea.
Speaker Bio:
Sukjong Hong is a writer and artist working on graphic journalism and oral history-based multi-media performances. Her writing and graphic journalism has appeared in Fusion News, Al Jazeera America, The Huffington Post, Gothamist, and Triple Canopy Magazine, among others. She is currently working on a series of graphic novellas about the multi-generational impact of the Korean War.
After the presentation, Professor Ju Hui Judy Han (Geography, UofT) will facilitate a discussion about ways of reading and incorporating comics, visual exercises, and drawing into critical pedagogy and community organizing. Faculty, graduate students, artists, and activists are all welcome!
Refreshments will be provided.
Eventbrite RSVP: Beyond the Pickets: Comics & visual culture in telling marginalized narratives – Tue, 9 Feb 2016 at 1:00 PM
