A Correspondence with Two Artists: Letter exchanges with Sara Sejin Chang and Young Joon Kwak

This series of letters accompanied the museum catalogue for the 2022 exhibition AllAbout Love: Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide) and Young Joon Kwak. The exhibition showcased the work of Korean-Dutch artist Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide) and Korean-American artist Young Joon Kwak, two internationally renowned artists of Korean descent. In her work, Chang dismantles myths and colonial narratives behind transnational and transracial adoption and presents the stories of those affected by forced adoption. By honoring and centering mothers who were coerced to give up their children to the transnational adoption industry, the work raises urgent and fundamental questions about the responsibility of adoption countries to protect the mothers and children from separation and subsequent alienation of adoptees from their motherland. While an indictment of human rights abuse in transnational adoption, Chang’s work enables us to restore our humanity and heal those who have been traumatized.

In Kwak’swork, unruly movements and a swirl of queer gestures embody a form of resistance against the patriarchal gaze and the violence of objectification. These aesthetic strategies are grounded in Kwak’s desire to uncover different ways of understanding our bodies and discovering new forms of intimacy across social differences. Kwak focuses on the multiplicity and hybridity of identities, helping audiences explore and question their own identities and develop a new understanding of the bodies of queers and transgenders. The two artists, while seemingly unrelated and independent, are nevertheless connected through their commitment to a society in which we depend on each other by fostering a community through empathy and solidarity. The exhibition takes its title from All About Love, a groundbreaking book by bell hooks which opened new ways of thinking about love as a transformative force that reshapes everyday lives.