Understanding and Respecting Our Differences

Recently, The PVLSE Magazine team sat down with its 2022 Summer Writing and Arts Competition – Arts Category 3rd Place winner, Jeongwoo Lim, to talk about her piece and her inspiration. The South Korean student has spent 14 years living in China, while holding onto her passion in arts. When asked about the reason why she picked up art, she said:

“I had confidence in conveying my ideas and the theme through this medium of communication. I find art a great medium to convey messages to a wide range of audiences due to its characteristics of being a visual representation. It is an easily accessible form anyone can interpret and appreciate.”

Not only does Jeongwoo value conveying messages, but according to her, the “aesthetics” have been another important aspect that she looks for when finding inspiration. She has been a challenger, a representative of diversity herself when talking about the different areas of art she has tried in her art journey.

“My inspirations for artworks usually come as momentary clicks in my head. Often, I am also inspired by other artists’ artwork I see in magazines and social media. These works of art are mostly for entertainment purposes, focused on aesthetics, rather than a significant message. When I intend to create artwork with certain social and global significance, I am inspired by news articles. Until now, my experiences in art had been focused on 3-dimensional sculptures. In fact, I barely had any experience in digital drawing. I thought this competition would be agreat opportunity for me to expand my area of expertise and become a better artist.”

She also wants to create an impact through her arts, which inspired her to create her award-winning digital artwork “Understanding and Respecting Our Differences.” In the picture, she depicts various groups of people that can be found in this world and how they can unify at a table. Speaking of the underlying reason for creating this piece, she says:

“I recently read a number of news articles about hate crimes against [minorities], misunderstandings of [the disabled], and gender conflict. These social issues, impacting tens of thousands of people motivated me to create this artwork. I aimed to convey the idea that we should understand and respect differences. That they are differences, not what is wrong. I wanted to raise awareness of the issue of building stereotypes and discriminating against the members of certain communities. ‘Diversity’ is a theme I have a voice for, a global issue I care about.”

She regards diversity as a meaningful topic in her background and experience. In the chat, she explains her understanding with respect to this year’s competition theme – “Diversity,” and why it matters to her.

“For myself, diversity is an especially important topic to discuss, because I am attending an international school. My peers are from various cultural backgrounds, experiences, ethnicity, and lots more. I indeed am a foreigner in China as well. Understanding the term diversity allows me to respect the members of my community. It allows me to become a global citizen. As a third culture kid, ultimately, exploring and understanding the concept of diversity is the process of understanding my identity and getting to know what makes me myself.”

Last but not least, Jeongwoo chats about her plan moving forward and what drives her into producing more high-quality work. She hopes to take this award-winning experience as a gift, as another inspiration for her along the way, as a milestone in her endeavor to make her voice heard and to make an impact upon others.

“One point I would like to make for everyone reading this post is to stand up for the social minority, or those targeted to be discriminated against. Though a single voice might seem unimpactful, when they come together, it becomes powerful.”