Eleana J. Kim’s Producing Missing Persons: Korean Adoptee Artists Imagining (Im)Possible Lives highlights the work of various artists as they utilize visual art in order to (re)tell, (re)write, and (re)imagine what it means to be a Korean adoptee.

Kim is intersted specifically in visual art as a mode of storytelling, and notes that ”adult adoptees produce images and meanings that attempt to articulate individual subjectivity and collective histories and personhood (78). Given the in-class conversations we’ve had about the importance and complexity of online communities, I was struck by Kim’s articulation of visual art as a modality through which diasporic and adoptee communities are fostered and fortified. As the Internet became more advanced, networks could connect more and more people, and “nascent groups quickly consolidated into a transnational Korean adoptee subculture” (76).

In addition to fostering commmunities, the Internet also provided tools and spaces for artists to share and create their work, as well as connect and collaborate with other artists. Kim mentions Mihee-Nathalie Lemoine—an adoptee who relocated to Belgium in 1968–as a “crucial hub” for the organization of these adoptee communities. As more artists collaborated and spread their work, art shows, collections, works, and exhibitions were able to totally transform the narrative experiences of Korean adoptees being put forth. These artists’ visual work explored their own individual experiences, while also putting them in conversation with others who were using their work to raise questions about adoptee subjectivity and “interrogate the political economy of adoption.”

One piece that stood out to me amongst the work that Kim mentions was KimSu Theiler’s 2008 piece entitled Hair Watch. Before transitioning into silence, the video starts off with a dialogue between Theiller and an unnamed ‘interlocutor.’ The two are discussing the differences in Theiller’s appearance between her photo at the orphanage and her passport photo. The piece focuses on Theiller’s hair growth as a way of measuring her time in the orphanage.

In her text, Kim underscores Theiller’s piece as an example of the ways that artists are expressing and navigating their adoptee identities in ways that are contrary to dominant portrayals which “frame the adoptee identity as a playful mix of ‘Western self’ and ‘Asian heritage.’” Rather, Theiller’s piece is innovative and insightful in that it “instead [captures] existential and ontological experiences of hybridity beyond the surface effects of race and culture” (81).

It was interesting for me to watch the photographs of Theiller unfold, for they captured her own personal growing and the passage of time, while also engaging with the juxtaposing dominant discourse of the “inconsequential non-time of the orphanage, the non-place from which the child must be rescued, in order to be brought into the normative space of the nuclear family, where, it is often presumed, the child’s real life begins.” I found the audio to be particularly provactive. As we hear Theiller recalling and (re)remembering her childhood memories, we are brought to those moments of her youth that were probably so crucial in establishing her own sense of self in a rapidly changing world. The sequence of photos works with the audio to collapse and reconstruct time. The images of Theiller’s growing hair and seemingly unchanging countenance interact with the audio of her recalling her memories in order to convey the complexities of her adoptee identity—a conveying that is remarkably personal and stunningly evocative in that it opens up new discursive channels that are typically untouched within dominant discourses of adoptee subjectivity.

“Endeavors to create the consumer’s self identity often involve their consumption of products, services, and media” (R. Elliot and K. Wattanasuwan, 1998).

The concept of Individual identity—or, the “self”— has often been linked to ideas of consumerism. In a capitalist society, an individual’s identity is largely constructed and displayed through the consumption of various cultural products. As social media platforms, digital media markets, and the Pop. Culture industry continue to expand and globalize, our lives and our identities become more and more entwined with the cultural products that we consume. This weeks readings highlight the ways in which the consumption and production of Korean TV Dramas impact the formation of various identities. The identity of fans and fan bases, and the national identity of Korea are formed, strengthened, and remolded as a result of the growing popularity of Korean TV Dramas.

Youjeong Oh analyzes the “discursive consumption” of Korean TV Dramas, and emphasizes the different ways that fans interact with and react to the shows that they watch. Rather than acting as passive consumers of TV Dramas, fans often play an active role in their production, and develop strong affective attachments to TV shows and stars that manifest as online fandoms on platforms like ‘DC Inside.’ As individual fans form online communities around their favorites shows and celebrities, the collective identity of fanbases grow and concretize, allowing fans to interact with TV stars and producers. Through social media platforms and online galleries, fans enact a dialogue with TV producers that enables them to directly participate in the production of certain shows. Oh describes how fans often influence the plot lines of many TV Dramas. Online conversations amongst fans provide producers with insight into what viewers want to see happen in each episode—a process made easier by the ‘live production’ of many Korean TV Dramas. In the case of Sungkyunkwan Scandal, fans even impacted the level of background music after voicing complaints of the music being too loud.

Not only do online forums and social media platforms allow fans to influence TV shows, but these sites also foster active communities that provide fans with a sense of belonging as they form a sort of social identity centered around a particular TV show or desirable TV star. In addition to communicating with producers, fans also communicate with each other. Oh notes that fans produce and reproduce images, videos, and even develop their own languages and lingo. I found the snack deliveries and attendance checks to be particularly interesting. As fans’ attachment to certain shows and stars deepens, they use the Internet as a space to organize, raise money, and display their love for the shows that they watch. The attendence checks establish “senses of belonging, similarity, simultaneity, and thus attachment to each other among users. Therefore, the spontaneous check temporarily forms a community, a group of people who are dedicated to a similar interest at the same time” (Oh, 143). Online forums and social media platforms provide a space for fans to engage with each other, and interact with the producers and actors of their favorite shows. Similar to KPOP fandoms, K-Drama fanbases demonstrate the ties between identity formation and consumption. As fanbases form online, they construct their own collective identies that are held together by online participation, and feelings of desire and belonging.

Yukie Hiratz’s Touring ‘Dramatic Korea’ points to a different kind of identity that is reshaped by the emergence of Korean TV Dramas—the conceptual identities of tourists and the Korean National identity. Hiratz focuses on Winter Sonata, and marks the shows’ popularity in Japan as a factor in the reshaping of conceptions of traveling Asian bodies and the ‘tourist gaze.’ “Indeed…subjects who were moving had been presumed to be male, white, and heterosexual; static women emphasized against dynamic men” (145). Winter Sonata helps generate more tourism to Korea by transforming it into an attractive tourist destination for Japanese women, rather than a “men’s space haunted by guilt.” Hiratz writes, “such a new ‘gaze,’ noticeable among women, overcame the male-dominated imperialistic historical context, reflected new tendancies created by global consumer culture in the 1990s” (148). Shows like Winter Sonata intersect with imperial histories, racialized and gendered conceptions of tourism, and transnational diasporic communities, thus reshaping the global image of Korea from a multitude of perspectives.