Reflection

I live in the nation of South Korea, a busy country moving at a speedy pace, which made it challenging for me to notice the gradual changes in our environment. The tall buildings and the constant glow of the neon signs of our city had blinded my eyes and resulted in my ignorance of the current state of our world. Once my eyes were open, I began to look around for evidence of climate change. The first place that came to my mind was my family album; I observed a photo of me during one summer’s day standing happily in front of my house less than four years ago. Back then, Korea’s summers were never as hot as they are now, clearly a gradual yet detrimental change in our community. It was then when I learned that climate change didn’t necessarily reveal its true effects in dramatic ways, such as ice glaciers melting in the North Pole or sea levels rising. To visualize the pure shock that I felt once I saw how climate change has crept up on my community, I decided to name my artwork "Invisible Changes" to highlight how climate change weaves itself into the fabric of our daily lives, often without any of us realizing it. In contrast to the current figure of me standing in the center of the artwork enduring the desertification and extreme weathers, my younger self illustrated in the photo album is happy, carefree, and safe from the harsh effects of global warming. My artwork serves as a call to awareness and action, urging people to recognize and address the environmental shifts happening around us before they become irreversible. Just like the old Korean saying goes, “Little droplets of rain will soak your clothes,” it is crucial to keep in mind that tiny changes can build up to become major shifts in the environment.