Reflection

While underwater, she would move her arms to and from, clapping her hands as if she were trying to cheer me up. “Aja! Aja!” she’d constantly chant the Korean word equivalent to “Let’s go! Let’s go!” to heighten my spirits and keep me moving. My grandmother would hold my hand and use her slender forefinger to point at the surrounding scenery beneath the surface: darting fish, swaying seaweed, and the subtle textures of coral reefs. However, now it’s a different story. Jeju’s waters are now facing growing threats. Sea surface temperatures have risen by about 1.78°C over the past 30 years, accelerating coral bleaching to nearly 35.3 percent of Jeju’s neighboring corals. Residents of Jeju like my grandmother themselves witness these changes firsthand, as habitats shrink and the diversity of marine life diminishes. To pay tribute to those memories and confront the reality of what’s changing, I created this painting after a recent dive. It captures both the warmth of my childhood experiences and the growing sense of loss I felt seeing how much the ocean had changed emphasizing on awareness.