Karen Sung

Loughborough University

(Un)welcomed inheritance? Considering the weight of heritage through culturally-specific understandings of semiotics in a co-illustration session among South Koreans.

Panel: Community

A print of a person’s hand where the tip of the ring finger is missing, known as the handprint of Ahn Jung-Geun, would not evoke emotions in those not brought up in Korean culture. It also boasts of national symbols that reflect the glory - or the glorified - past, of a dynasty when we were once noble and sovereignt. Nowadays, South Korea has become a socio-centric society where self-identity is tightly bound to group identity, so these traditional symbols act as both a representation of the nation as well as of the self. I am us. How prominent are these national symbols' looming presence for South Korean people, and how is it affecting how they see themselves? How can inherited symbolisms work together with self-identified symbols to better populate the discussions around representing South Korea?

This presentation critically reflects on participatory illustration sessions I held with South Koreans where they built personalised symbols that represent their individual identities, away from group identities. I aim to share my observations of these illustration workshops to navigate how prominent - if any - inherited symbols were in constructing personalised symbols of their identities. I use this experience as a case study to question how inherited understandings of national symbols affect the understanding of the self in these participants, and how the final symbols they made add to the active and ongoing process of making heritage in illuminating both South Korea and the South Koreans.


Karen Jiyun Sung is an illustrator and a researcher based in the UK. She has undertaken her practice-based PhD at Loughborough University, where she developed her research interest in the collective creation of illustrations to illuminate the self-reflective stories of individuals, mainly of South Korean descent. Her community-led illustration practice reflects her interest in multicultural identity and belonging for immigrants or transnational individuals. She is currently a Research Associate at Loughborough University, UK.