2025 CKS "Comfort Women" Creative Project Contest

Student Contest

"Taken Away" by Soon-duk Kim @ comfortwomeneducation.org

Through this creative project contest, CKS aims to educate the UCLA community on ongoing issues pertaining to "comfort women" from Korea, Taiwan, China, the Philippines, and elsewhere, who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Pacific War.

We are pleased to announce the 2025 UCLA Center for Korean Studies "Comfort Women" Creative Project Contest!

In 2022, the Center for Korean Studies received a gift to create a permanent endowment to support creative projects by UCLA students and faculty, together with an online archive, research, and programming.

The contest is open to all UCLA undergraduates who are enrolled in the 2025 Spring quarter. Each work must address the topic of "comfort women" in some way in literary (poetry, prose, or video of spoken word), visual (such as drawing, painting, print, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, photography, film, video of performance), or multi-media format.

Students should read this brief article on "comfort women" to familiarize themselves with the topic:

Beverly Milner (Lee) Bisland, Jimin Kim, and Sunghee Shin, “Teaching about the Comfort Women during World War II and the Use of Personal Stories of the Victims,” in Education about Asia 24 no 3 (Winter 2019), https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/teaching-about-the-comfort-women-during-world-war-ii-and-the-use-of-personal-stories-of-the-victims/.

Submissions are due by 11:59 pm on Thursday, May 15, 2025. 

First place will win a $500 Visa gift card, second place will win a $300 Visa gift card, and third place will win a $150 Visa gift card. Depending on the number of entries, we may increase the number of second and third prizes awarded. There will also be non-monetary prizes.

Submit your entry here with your project as a PDF, JPG, or MP4/MOV file along with your completed and signed release form.

Please see winning entries from the 2024 contest.

If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Jennifer Jung-Kim at jungkim@ucla.edu. 

Published: Friday, March 1, 2024