Evgenia Kim

Prints From Koryo Saram

Evgenia Kim

Prints From Koryo Saram

Date

2019

Media

Lithograph, Silkscreen

Format

Print

Dimensions

16.5 × 29.5 in

$ 480.00

Unavailable


Individual prints available from Koryo Saram.

Print No. 1: A woman carrying a bundle in front of a landscape. 16.5″ x 29.5.” Lithography, Silkscreen, and Thread.
Print No. 2: Children in school with lesson book. 16.5″ x 29.5.” Lithography, Silkscreen, and Thread.
Print No. 3: Landscape with bundles. 16.5″ x 29.5.” Lithography, Silkscreen, and Thread.

On Koryo Saram:

‘Like most people with an interest in their family’s history, I am sentimental about the stories that I was told as a child by my grandmother. My Korean ancestors completely assimilated into the culture of the Soviet Union in an effort to guarantee the acceptance of their children into the new country. As a result, I grew up learning little about my obscure background, except for the sporadic mentioning of my grandfather’s travels to Uzbekistan from the Far East of Russia. The family stories I heard as a child do not match each other, nor do they make sense when put into a linear perspective. This ‘cultural amnesia’ has recently caused me to focus on the concept of how one defines the loss of ethnic identity. I want to capture the fleeting nature of my family’s stories and connect them to the experiences and effects of the forced exile of 171,781 ethnic Koreans in the Soviet Union.

I was aware as a child that I was not always told the whole story of my family’s origins, but rather the parts that were more age-appropriate for me at the time. I can recall only one time when my grandmother told me about the experiences that her family had gone through during World War II, and I remember how uncomfortable I felt seeing her crying in the dark. At the moment, I thought I would never ask her about the past again, not realizing then how these untold stories would go on to have an impact on my artistic life.

This book can be seen as my personal attempt to fill the silences produced by the untold stories of my ancestors’ background. Without any access to the direct source, my grandmother, I had to conduct my own research on my family’s history and explore how trans-generational stories can be passed on. How could a fragile, fleeting, and multi-layered story be made tangible.’