Erin Choi

Growing up Korean American in the insulated homogeneity of suburbia, I couldn’t fathom acknowledging— let alone embracing— another marker of divergence. Stumbling into a rudimentary understanding of my own queerness was an action of unwitting defiance, one unequivocally at odds with model minority conventions and a fervently religious immigrant upbringing. It was as if disembodied, demanding hands were tearing at me from multiple directions, embodying the interplay between intersectional identities as I unraveled my latent queerness. The ability to sketch, erase, and redefine with graphite in order to express this multifaceted exchange makes it one of my favorite tools; from a more metaphorical angle, it likens to the imperfect experience of exploring personal identity. Those same tentative forays into actualization become bolder, clearer, more unmistakable with each stroke— forward, back, then forward again.

ekcerin@gmail.com