Korean American adoptee and artist runs to raise awareness

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Korean American adoptee and artist runs to raise awareness

Published: 15 Sep. 2024, 10:01

Adopted artist of Korean descent, Mirae kh RHEE [JOONGANG ILBO]

The letters C-1151 shone brightly in the sunlight as Korean American artist Mirae kh Rhee jogged 8.8 kilometers (5.46 miles) from Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, to Seodaemun District in western Seoul on Tuesday.

"C-1151" is the adoption number Rhee was assigned as an infant in 1976, when she was sent overseas to be adopted to a family in the United States.

Rhee, 48, ran from the former site of the hospital where she was born, according to her birth records, to the Eastern Social Welfare Society building, which was the institution that facilitated her overseas adoption. The marathon was a part of the artist's “Run Towards My Family” campaign, which seeks to reunite adoptees with their birth parents.

Rhee started searching for her parents around the age of 18, but three decades passed without progress. After completing her run, she sat down with JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily, tearfully saying this might be her last run.

“This is a good moment for me to show how brave I am,” said Rhee. “Maybe [my parents] don't have the courage to come forward because they feel so much shame. And then I thought, well, maybe if I can show that I'm really courageous, maybe they can be brave too and then they can come [find me].”

Adopted artist of Korean descent, Mirae kh RHEE [JOONGANG ILBO]

The artist didn't blame her parents for abandoning her as child. “I questioned how that could be an option when [my parents] had no options,” she said. “I would like to say to them it’s not their fault.”

“We're all a victim of this system of that South Korea continues to engage with, sending away their most vulnerable to western countries,” said Rhee. When asked whether the practice should continue, her answer was an adamant no, saying it is "pretty shameful.”

The artist pointed out that rather than sending orphans overseas, the country should be thinking about "producing a type social welfare for people in dire straits,” so that the orphaning doesn’t happen in the first place. Rhee was raised in Detroit as a result of the adoption system that she believes is problematic, and had to reconcile with her history and identity.

Adopted artist of Korean descent, Mirae kh RHEE [JOONGANG ILBO]

“I think it is a work in progress,” said the artist. “We all have our different traumas that we’re constantly processing. Despite my adoption and the difficult family that raised me, I have been pretty successful at finding my happiness.”

Rhee went on to say that even the family she was adopted into didn’t know how to process their trauma and took it out on her. She also said that mental and verbal abuse is something that many adoptees have to face.

“A lot of us were told as we were growing up, especially when our parents were upset with us, and especially the girls, that if we hadn't been saved, we would have all become prostitutes like our birth mothers,” said Rhee. The artist went on to say that it took a lot to unlearn the self-hatred based on identity.

Poster for the "Seven Sisters Missing Merope" exhibition held last year [KOREAN CULTURAL CENTER LOS ANGELES]

The artist's “unlearning” of abusive programming can be observed in her works. In what Rhee calls a “trans-cultural” nature, the artist takes objects that are significant in one culture and reframes them in the context of another. The most notable example of this would be her installation piece, "Seven Sister (Missing Merope Version)," which was displayed at the Korean Cultural Center in LA last year.

Titled after Merope, one of the seven daughters of Greek titan Atlas and nymph Pleione, the exhibit utilizes the jukbuin, a body-sized Korean bamboo pillow. Taking note of the jukbuin’s usage of fighting the heat in the summer, Rhee gave the pillow a gendered identity by adorning it with a sun visor, often worn by middle-aged Korean women.

The journey of unlearning was not an easy one, according to the artist. Since relocating to Germany to immerse herself into the local contemporary art scene, she has been in Berlin for 15 years. But she said that experience actually drew her back to Korea.

Adopted artist of Korean descent, Mirae kh RHEE [JOONGANG ILBO]

“I was disappointed in my time in Korea when I came back a couple of times,” the artist reminisced of her visit to Korea in 2002. “I failed all my Korean language classes because I felt so much trauma with learning, but I learned German pretty quickly.”

But she was surprised that Korea was also dynamic and developed, which was different from the “poor” image that she expected it to be, which she was also the image she was accustomed to while living in western countries. “I was sent to some pretty abusive white supremacists, so I had a lot of self-hate for my Korean identity.”

The artist announced her future plans moving forward.

“I would like to start running races in all the countries where we were sent,” said Rhee. “I probably won’t do a full marathon. I was thinking I would do a half marathon in each of the countries so then I finish it in about seven or eight years if I do two per year, to bring more awareness.”

“And then maybe since there are adoptees in all those places, maybe they would want to come out and run with me.”

BY CHUN SU-JIN [kim.minyoung5@joongang.co.kr]