The traditional style of clothing, called Hanbok was popular back in historical Korea, when North and South Korea was one country. For women, it consists of a hooped skirt that goes to your ankles and a crop-top styled jacket made of fine silk. Men wore dark colored silk pants with a silk vest and jacket. This woodcut print pictures a korean woman in a Hanbok or a traditional Korean dress; it symbolizes my seperation of korean history, fashion and need for belonging within its rediscovery of my Korean identity.

 The constant onslaught of Anti-Asian hate crimes during the early months of 2021 has disheartened many – within the Asian community, as well as in the general population. Yet this is not a new phenomenon; racism and xenophobia have been social problems since long before the 2021 hate crimes ever occurred. It is the cultural circumstances of these crimes – current as well as historical – which have inspired my current project, Asian Misidentification. This project aims to debunk how different Asian ethnicities are perceived and assigned to a particular discriminatory bubble. Although each individual’s story may differ in specifics, all are connected by the same thread, which is that the majority of people still appear to believe the statement, “all Asians look the same”.

When you hear the words “adopted, adoptee, or adoption”, are you aware of the diverse complexities associated with an adoptee’s experience? Voicing Adoption Diaspora is a documentary which recounts pivotal conversations on the topic of adoption trauma. This very personal project provides a space for adoptees, non-adoptees and prospective adoptive parents, to recognize matters of trauma as they relate to the adoptee narrative.

Saekdong is a type of Hanbok (traditional korean clothing) and "refers to traditional Korean patchwork fabric consisting of stripes of bright colors based on the philosophical concept of the five elements and yin-yang." - https://portmanteauhome.com/blogs/news/what-is-saekdong

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it tells the story of people of two cultures and the underlying complexities associated with identity. What is Saekdong?, delicately places a person's history through fabric design, and the stigma of "not american enough", or "not asian enough".

I find that the accordion-style book accurately shows each day I was away with a foster mother of my own, who treated me with tenderness. I have no other information on who she is, or what she looks like now. But I was fortunate to find that, in these beautiful photographs of myself growing up with a loving mother-figure, nonetheless. This book is for her, for myself, and for the hope of finding either her or my birth mother, in this daunting family search for belonging.

As we each think about our culture, and what it means to be an American, as well as Asian, Black, White or otherwise, our beliefs may shift as we revisit our own unique backgrounds. We discover what has contributed to our individual identity, in the places we’ve lived in and the road that we’ve made for ourselves. Learning Hangul is the first image that spoke to my inner self, and made me think, why I began to search for my 'missing' background.