Menlo College was celebrating its 85th year with an art exhibition and invited 85 artists to create an artwork to respond to a year during that year time period. We were given a year to make the art for the exhibition at the college. The year was arbitrarily given. Jesse Pritchett, our son, had been a university lecturer at Jiujiang University in Jiujiang, China since In both and Jesse facilitated an artist residency for me to work with 20 college freshmen at the university.
Each year the students and I worked together to create and perform a performance-art piece. In the fall of , my husband David and I, accepted faculty positions at the university for the fall semester. David taught English language classes and I papermaking and artists books. My 20 art students and I worked in a studio we devised in the faculty housing block where we lived. I spoke little Chinese but my students who knew basic English could understand me.
I had a Chinese co- teacher who helped me with the language and the navigation of the university system. My husband and I lived off of the economy, shopped in local markets and ate in the numerous restaurants lining the streets immediately off campus.
We made many friends; Chinese colleagues, artists, students and locals. When Menlo College gave me the year , I focused on China. The military expanded and moved these comfort stations to follow the areas of combat in other countries extending to the end of WWII.
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One of these bases was in Jiujiang, where we lived and taught. Japanese military commanders were fully complicit in procuring women and developing and operating comfort stations. They kept detailed records. This is a story I wanted to tell. Making art about horrific subjects requires distance. Being too literal would repel viewers rather than engage them.
