Bernice Akamine, Lani Asunción, Pelenakeke Brown, Crystal Z Campbell, Jisoo Chung, Sean Connelly, Kyuri Jeon, Jane Jin Kaisen, Mao Ishikawa, Slow Futures Laboratory, Stephanie Syjuco

Opening Reception: September 12, 6-8 PM RSVP

Flesh Witness brings together contemporary artists whose work examines global histories and ongoing conditions of militarism across Asia and the Pacific. Focusing on Hawai‘i, Korea, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Samoa, the group exhibition includes artworks spanning from the 1970s to newly created work, ranging from video to sculpture, photography, mixed media, and installation that considers how military power is inscribed in landscapes, bodies, and archives.

The exhibition takes its title from participating artist Kyuri Jeon’s video work, 산증인, 活證人, The Flesh-Witness, 2021, which revisits American archival documentation of Korean War prisoners who were forcibly tattooed with anti-communist slogans. The artists in Flesh Witness recover and reinterpret such inscriptions of power embedded in official state footage, newspaper archives, photographs, naming conventions, plants, and coastlines, revealing the intervention and occupation that established and maintained imperial dominance throughout the region. 

Throughout the exhibition, artists foreground intergenerational memory, Indigenous knowledge beyond official histories and archives, and practices of ecological stewardship and activism that support communities living with the ongoing effects of militarized occupation. In a moment marked by border violence, territorial occupation, genocide, and ecological crisis, these artists reimagine the Pacific region through the intersecting legacies of military imperialism. Presented in Los Angeles, a city historically influenced by transpacific migration and military infrastructure, the exhibition envisions new shared futures of Oceanic peoples and diasporas.

Flesh Witness is organized by REDCAT guest curators GYOPO and Amy Kahng, with support from Katy Dammers, Deputy Director and Chief Curator and Kyla Kim, Getty Marrow Curatorial Intern.