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North Korea has endured a hereditary dictatorship for three generations. For over seventy-five years, countless people have been unjustly sacrificed. Hundreds of thousands were cast into political prison camps—into cold pits without names or graves—and even today more than 120,000 are believed to remain imprisoned, living in inhuman conditions.

Severe food shortages drive many North Korean women to cross into China in search of survival. There, many are deceived by traffickers and sold into sexual slavery, their numbers estimated in the tens of thousands. Fear silences them; if discovered by Chinese authorities, they are forcibly returned and face brutal punishment.

My work is ritualistic, created to speak healing to wounded spirits and to pray for the eradication of the roots of their sorrow. Carrying their cries within me, I burn and burn, reducing form and color to their most essential elements—until freedom and human rights are restored.

Website: http://www.gongsankim.com