News Today
(salt)
News Today (Salt) is part of the "News Today" series which takes real life news stories and interprets them through the easily digestible, strategically commodified aesthetics of kawaii (かわいい) anime culture. The series is inspired by the popularity of both global anime consumption and entertainment-forward news media shows such as Taiwan's Next Media Animation. (Salt) is an interpretation of a news headline about the South Korea's blind-eye towards the active use of slavery in its sea salt production industry. Vulnerable peoples, often poor, or mentally or physically handicapped, are either sold or kidnapped into the South Korean slave trade, where they are forced to become laborers in remote areas with little to no protections for well-being. Local communities are often complicit in the practice, and the South Korean government has done little to seriously address this well-known "public secret."