‘Imagine a time we can draw hope together’: dreams and visions from Korean children
by Allan LEONARD
8 January 2024
From 8–12 January, Ulster University hosted at its Belfast York Street campus an exhibition of drawings by children of Korea and its diaspora. The drawings were created as part of programmes in partnership with Okedongmu Children in Korea and a Japanese organisation intended to provide space for encounters between children from North and South Korea to know one another. Since the signing of the Armistice agreement in 1953 which stopped active fighting in the Korean War, the peninsula has been divided with almost no opportunity for people to meet.
The launch event featured short speeches from the organisers and special guests from South Korea, Japan, and the US, who spoke about the children’s stories and the programme that enabled the exchanges. The speakers were Duncan Morrow (Ulster University), Dong Jin Kim (Trinity College Dublin), Jennifer Deibert (American Friends Service Committee), Kyung Mook Kim (Waseda University, Japan), and Alex Wimberly (Corrymeela).
Duncan Morrow (director of community engagement, Ulster University) welcomed everyone and invited the audience to look at the paintings and how they highlight some of the difficulties of what peacebuilding looks like in a nuclear arms context:
“What strikes me… is what looks like the smallest gesture — pictures by children — are all that remain of the human face, which otherwise disappears. In the context of Korea, these are really quite big gestures. These paintings are important — they change the narrative of ‘we cannot speak to each other; there is no relationship; it’s all over’.”
Dong Jin Kim (Trinity College Dublin) said that he was speaking first as a friend to everyone in Northern Ireland, then as a representative of Okedongmu Children in Korea (OKCK). He explained the evolution of OKCK’s work, from direct support to people in North Korea, through hospitals and nutrition programmes, for example. At that time, OKCK was able to visit North Korea along with children; Dong Jin recalled his visit to Pyongyang in 2008. Although the National Security Law of South Korea prohibits such encounters, OKCK obtained special permission during the peace process in the 2000s.
OKCK has done this work for 30 years. For ten years there were physical trips North and South to deliver the children’s portraits and paintings. For 20 years since the trips became impossible, OKCK has been going outside the Korean peninsula to places like the US and Japan, to engage with the Korean diaspora.
Don Jin Kim said that this exhibition at UU came about because Morrow visited South Korea, where they discussed the possibility of bringing the artwork to Northern Ireland. OKCK want to share their work further in countries like Cyprus, South Africa, and Cambodia:
“We want to raise awareness about the conflict and division on the Korean peninsula. We want to show that it’s almost like photos and drawings from a different world, a different part of the planet. Maybe you start to think, ‘Oh, actually even something from the other side of the planet can serve something like a mirror to our own lives and our societies.’”
He described his academic research with David Mitchell (in attendance) from Trinity College Dublin, on the topic of “translocal learning”, “where even by looking at somewhere so different, we can learn something about ourselves”. He added:
“Time and time again [I experience] how children are trapped by the divisions and structures that adults put in their place. In reality, all children want to do is play with each other regardless of identity or borders.
“If I try to say something like this in South Korea in the current circumstances, I’m not allowed to, I’m not supposed to. So, in Korea, I only talk about Ireland. In Ireland, I’m not supposed to talk about Ireland, so I only talk about Korea.
“I just hope that this can be a time for us to reflect on the walls that adults put up and what kind of world we can live in when we put the children at the centre.”
Jennifer Deibert works with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which is a Quaker organisation that has maintained links over the years across the border of North and South Korea, “seeking a new future between people of the US and North Korea”.
She explained how AFSC met up with OKCK about a year ago and began “dreaming up international art exhibits”. AFSC help set up the first such exhibit in Los Angeles, including drawings from the Korean diaspora in the US (some of which were displayed at the UU exhibit):
“And standing here among this artwork, I can see the children’s vision for the world they want to live in, and it’s a world I want to see, too. One where young people from across divides can play together, [be] by the riverside, and become soccer champions.”
Her challenge to the room of adults was to continue to be led by the children into a vision of the future, and to take action and to walk in the way of peace, even when it’s difficult to imagine how we move forward.
Deibert ended with a poem, “The World I Live In”, by Mary Oliver, which concludes: “only if there are angels in your head will you | ever, possibly, see one”.
Kyung Mook Kim (Waseda University, Japan) offered some reflections on the importance of this exhibit. He asked the question, “What shape does hope look like for you?”
“For some people, it could look like a dot. For others, hope can look like a line. For other people, hope can look like a surface, an object.
“I hope that we can take a moment to imagine what hope would look like if all of us came together to draw it.”
He described how the exhibit drawings come from children from both sides of the Korean peninsula, the US, and some from Japan (from Japanese children as well as from “Zainichi”, Korean residents in Japan): “For them, like many of you, they have grown up under division in their homes, in their classrooms, and in their societies.”
Kyung Mook Kim said that although some of the drawings may seem familiar, some foreign, “everyone is smiling”:
“Everyone is saying, I want to be your friend. The children and all these paintings have the same heart, they have the same warmth as you all. I hope that this can be a time when we can feel the warmth from the children of these drawings, and a time we can imagine and draw hope together.”
Alex Wimberly described the organisation that he leads, Corrymeela, as “a Christian community, open to all people who seek freedom from the divisions of us-versus-them”. He added that it has members who are committed to the work of peace and reconciliation through the work of community, and he pointed out several members in the audience:
“We create spaces and moments when people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to meet, to encounter each other, where we don’t try to impose solutions on one another, [rather] get to know each other and learn from one another. And learn that not only are we probably more alike than we realise, but the differences we have are nothing to fear, but something that can actually help us learn more about the world, about each other, ourselves, something larger than any of us.”
He added that at Corrymeela they “have made a lot of mistakes”, but they continue to try and learn through shared experiences. Wimberly detailed two pieces of wisdom from their work of almost 60 years: the education of young people; and art:
“There is a great gift in being able to accompany individuals as they are learning who they are. There is an opportunity for them to create an identity for themselves that is influenced but not dictated by culture, by others, or by the biases they may otherwise pick up. So, accompanying young people, as educators, allows us to see the world in a new way, to see the hope of the possibility of new relationships and a new world.
“The idea of shared experiences through dance, music, and art allows us to meet each other without talking at each other.
“As I look around at these pieces of art, at part of Corrymeela I am heartened by that desire to create spaces and moments that we can meet, encounter, and learn from one another.”
Duncan Morrow concluded the speeches by thanking everyone for attending and repeating UU’s commitment to engagement around issues of peace and conflict: “It’s really become part of our identity.”
The Drawing Hope exhibit is scheduled to be displayed at W5, Belfast, in March 2024.
NOTES
The exhibition was made possible through a partnership between Okedongmu Children in Korea, Corrymeela, Ulster University, American Friends Service Committee, ReconciliAsian, and Friends of Northeast Asia Children’s Art Exhibition Organizing Committee.