Heal through Drawing

Yeonju Jung

Yeonju is a so-called third culture kid from a multicultural family background. She went to china when she was three years old, but was only taught to speak Korean till four years old. Suddenly she was put into Chinese kindergarten without knowing any Chinese. For 4 Years old, it wasn't easy. She was struggling a lot, according to my parents. She even stopped verbally communicating with other people for a few weeks. She also had anger issues at that time; She was biting people because nobody understood her, and she was angry. At this very moment, drawing came into her life. She was told to communicate with others through her drawing. It started with drawing what she needed or what she wanted to do. Throughout time, drawing became the most comfortable way to express herself. At the same time, she healed through expressing her feelings and communicating with other people. She started to talk again and began learning Chinese, but drawing is still “her way” to express herself. Thanks to drawing, she is not traumatized by this childhood experience; her only memory during kindergarten was drawing on her sketchbooks. This is also why she truly believes in the therapeutic effect of drawing and the power of art.

In this modern society, where we are required to be efficient, we consider verbal language as the way to communicate with each other. Through this art project, she want to remind her audience that there are various ways to express yourself and share with others. In this project, she visualized her childhood experience; through that, she wanted her audience to know how influential and therapeutic art is.