The Statue of Peace will be erected in front of Gangdong-gu Office on Aug. 14, one day before the Liberation Day.

 Lee Jung-hun, mayor of Gangdong-gu, said that an unveiling ceremony for the Statue of Peace will take place in front of its head office at 5 p.m. on Aug. 14, the official memorial day of comfort women. The ceremony will be co-hosted and co-supervised by Gangdong-gu and the Gangdong-gu Promotional Committee for the Statue of Peace and 200 residents and representatives of various civic groups who supported the construction of the statue are expected to be in attendance.

The Statue of Peace in Gangdong-gu has the face of a teenager living in Gangdong-gu. Unlike the existing comfort women memorial statues, which portray a sitting girl, this one takes the form of a girl looking straight ahead in an upright position with one foot advanced. The girl has a butterfly on her shoulder, with her left hand holding a sprig derived from “Flower Yet to Be in Bloom,“ a painting by the former comfort woman Kim Sun-deok. Artist Lee Haeng-gyun, who made the girl statue, explained his work as “signifying new hopes to heal past wounds and follow future dreams.“ Gangdong-gu plans to erect a memorial stone with the names of citizens and civic groups carved on it along with the commemoration speech, next to the statue.

The location of the statue was determined respecting the opinions of residents. The promotional committee conducted a preference survey of residents and suggested the Open Yard of Gangdong-gu Office as the location; then the office surveyed the pros and cons and the final location was determined with the consent of the majority.

The move to erect the Statue of Peace in Gangdong-gu gained traction on July 21, 2018, with the launch of the Gangdong-gu Promotional Committee for the Statue of Peace. Aside from regular campaigns by the committee and volunteers conducted every week since last September, street fund-raising events and bazaars were held to collect KRW 50 million won with the participation of 1,000 citizens.

Young people in the local community played an outstanding part too. Middle and high school students volunteered to take part in the fund-raising campaigns in droves and “Areumdri,“ a network of middle school students, raised funds during last year's Pre-Historic Culture Festival of Gangdong and delivered the money to the committee.

Gangdong-gu acted to support the campaigns in response to residents' volition. It set aside KRW 30 million for the statue this year and plans to offer whatever is needed to install the statue like transport fees once it is completed.

During the unveiling ceremony, the participants will share how the girl statue in Gangdong-gu was built, and a variety of cultural events, including a poetical drama on the Statue of Peace, will take place. “I Can Speak,“ a movie based on the late Kim Bok-dong, a victim of Japan's sexual slavery and a Korean human rights activist, will be screened from 7 p.m.

“It's very meaningful to hold the unveiling ceremony of this statue, made through the joint effort of our residents, in time for the official memorial day of comfort women this year, the centennial of the March 1st Movement," Mayor Lee Jung-hun added, “we will provide full support so that the public can remember the open sores of comfort women and the history, to let our future generation have the right historical view.”

  <Related Photos>         

The statue of peace, with the face of a teenager from Gangdong-gu. Unlike the existing statue of a girl in a sitting posture, this work takes the form of a girl who looks straight ahead in an upright position with one foot advanced. It signifies new hopes to heal past wounds and follow future dreams.