Installation Art

In Between

Hanji (Korean paper), Korean fabric

It has been more than ten years since I stepped on this new place called America. Leaving my family in South Korea was not easy, but I wanted to be somebody. ‘Who would I become?’ All these years, I struggled to fit in this new culture, people, and language in the States. Even still, I always remained a ‘Korean’ or simply a ‘foreigner,’ but I comfortably accepted these labels because I took pride in being Korean. Recently, however, I realized my people in Korea do not see me as fully Korean. They said I act like an American and think like an American. Some part of me became foreign to them.

This textile artwork made of hanji (Korean paper) and bojagi (Korean fabric work) shows five stages of my journey in pupa forms. It starts with being pure and naïve before coming to the US and moving between three different states. As the journey continues, the language on the pupa also changes from Korean to English. I will always look ethnically Korean, so the medium of the pupa remains the same as it represents my Korean appearance. The bojagi encasing the pupa represents the cocoon, which becomes complicated in its pattern and color. Will I ever come out of the cocoon? Will I ever become fully American or go back to being fully Korean? I do not think so. I am not there yet and never will be.