Korean adoptee turns personal objects into portraits of belonging

Artist Sydney Fallon / Courtesy of Antonia Giordano

In MI&Gallery near Gyeongbok Palace, a small collection of sculptural works asks a single, pointed question: What object best represents your relationship to Korea?

The prompt is at the center of the upcoming exhibition, “Art & Seoul,” by Sydney Fallon, an Asian American artist and Korean adoptee who traveled from a small town in Arkansas to Seoul for her first solo show. The exhibition runs from July 24 to 27th and features 12 hand-crafted objects, each based on the responses of adoptees from around the world.

Though Fallon has been to Korea before, this visit carries personal and professional weight. The show coincides with a long-awaited meeting with her birth father, a reunion made possible through the Eastern Social Welfare Society (ESWS).

“While the documentation was there, going through ESWS was supportive, but it was also complex,” she told The Korea Times. It was only her persistence in searching that led her to meeting her birth father.

The exhibition draws loosely from the "doljabi" ceremony, a Korean tradition in which a child selects from a range of objects on their first birthday as part of a fortune-telling ritual, with each item symbolizing a possible future path. Here, however, the participants are adults — fellow adoptees asked to reflect instead on memory, dislocation and identity.

Sydney Fallon's foil and paper sculptures resembling objects used in a "doljabi" ceremony / Courtesy of Sydney Fallon

Some choices are steeped in cultural symbolism. One participant selected an onggi jar, the earthenware vessel used to store fermented foods like kimchi. Beyond its culinary uses, the jar acts as a metaphor. The adoptee described “putting untold emotions and feelings inside a jar and waiting until the ingredients (change in the jar).”

Others took a more ironic or playful approach. One chose a WOWPASS, a transportation and payment card used by travelers in Korea. “He had loaded money on it, and he couldn’t get a refund,” Fallon recalled. “Since he can’t get a refund on it, he felt in some way he was obligated to come back to Korea and use it.”

The card, in his telling, became a personal symbol of commitment, “a self-induced promise to return and reconnect."

Fallon’s own object is the rose of Sharon, Korea’s national flower. It also grows in her adoptive parents’ backyard in Arkansas, offering a visual throughline between her life in the United States and her origins in Korea. She grew up in a town of less than 10,000 people and experienced frequent racism. “I heard phrases like 'ching chong,'" she said.

Rose of Sharon made from foil and adoption papers / Courtesy of Sydney Fallon

Though Fallon’s early encounters with art began through drawing, her current work is more sculptural. “I always loved drawing on the back of pieces of paper,” she said about her childhood.

While drawing isn’t as present in her current works, she was inspired to continue to pursue art and will graduate soon with a fine arts degree from the University of Central Arkansas.

While the project centers adoptee perspectives, Fallon hopes other viewers will also engage with the work, especially in an era of social disconnection. Whether you’re a local, international or an adoptee, some objects that are ordinary to one viewer may be extraordinary to another. In sharing these stories and interpretations, Fallon hopes that it can help people bond and create the connections and communities that we all need.

Visit https://sydneyfallon04.wixsite.com/artnseoul for more information or follow @art_nseoul on Instagram.

Antonia Giordano is a freelance photographer and writer based in Seoul. An adoptee, Antonia deeply understands and connects with the issues surrounding adoption and post-adoption. Visit giordanoantonia.myportfolio.com and follow @antonia_creative_services on Instagram.