EVACUATION
Installation view of Migration: Speaking Nearby,
Photograph: Sarah Kim, Courtesy of the Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea, 2019
Photograph: Sarah Kim, Courtesy of the Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea, 2019
Evacuation is an archaeological re-membering enacted through a film- installation. It traces the story of Chiune Sugihara, his wife Yukiko and other supporters who handwrote Japanese transit visas that helped about 4,500 Polish and Lithuanian Jews flee Europas while Sugihara was serving as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania during the Second World War. It is said, they worked for 18-20 hours a day handwriting as many visas as they could. This was an unusual act of disobedience to the Japanese Empire, which also put the Sugihara family at risk. Traced through interviews with survivors from the Jewish community alongside a series of journeys undertaken by the artists to track down archival fragments, Evacuation traces how one may expand the space for discussion and thinking about what constitutes an act of humanity in this time (our time).
