Co-presented with Department of Art, UC Irvine

This panel focused on the works of Yong Soon Min (1953–2024), a lovingly self-proclaimed “Cold War Baby,” who was born during the year the Korean War ended in an armistice and the year of Joseph Stalin’s death during the Cold War. Min spent her artistic career unraveling the aftereffects and enduring consequences of these wars on nation-state history, diasporic (forced and chosen) migration, and the bodies of generations of peoples. The panel, with Simon Leung, artist and Professor of Art, UC Irvine; Sunny Xiang, Assistant Professor of English and Affiliate Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, Yale University; Steven Lee, Associate Professor of English, UC Berkeley; and moderated by independent curator Amy Kahng, contextualized the geopolitics of the Koreas in relation to the major players of the Cold War and shared how the echoes of these pasts are still in play in contemporary politics and art today, including Min’s final commissioned artwork, KISSSSS (2024).