You can’t remove location and memory

KIM HYUN-YE
The author is a Tokyo correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo.

It was something unimaginable when he was a college student playing guitar in a jazz band. He never thought he would speak up to combine art and technology for a social cause. Akitsugu Maebayashi, 59, is a professor at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences in Japan. He revived the memorial monument in memory of Koreans in the Gunma Prefectural Forest Park, which was destroyed by the prefecture.

This is how the professor revived the monument. First, download the app on a smartphone or tablet. Then, run the app and point at the site where the monument had been. The old monument will reappear as an augmented reality (AR)-based memorial. Why did Maebayashi create the app? On May 8, I talked with him on Zoom over his project.

“I knew the existence of the memorial in the Gunma Forest, but reading the news of the demolition of the memorial, I came up with the idea.” After the prefecture removed the monument, which was built by local residents in 2004, with heavy equipment in January, the professor began thinking about whether there was anything he could do. He wanted to use technology and started to consult with artists and professors he knew. As the monument was already destroyed, he chose to use its videos and photos online. He found people who could reproduce the monument with AR technology and released the app with his own money.

In terms of technology, the app can make the monument appear anywhere. But the professor thought that location was important. “The monument in Gunma Forest is gone, but the location of the monument cannot be erased.” He wants to convey the message that even though Gunma Prefecture destroyed the monument, it could not wipe it out from people’s memories as long as the site remains.

Civic groups erected the monument 20 years ago in memory of the Korean laborers forced to work at mines and military factories in Gunma during the Japanese colonial era. The monument had an inscription, “Memory, Reflection and Friendship.” It contained the wishes from the people of the two countries that friendship can bloom between the two when the sad history is acknowledged. There are 150 monuments for Koreans across Japan. The monument in Gunma Forest is the only one that was forcibly removed.

In June, Gunma Prefecture Governor Ichita Yamamoto and Korean Ambassador to Japan Yun Duk-min will meet. It is the time for diplomacy. I hope the governor will remember what the professor said. “A man-made object may disappear, but location and memory cannot be erased.”