Diasporic Ordinary Event on the 16. November at 3 to 5 pm.

What does it take to go back? For many diasporic subjects, return means visting family. For most of the 200,00 Korean adoptees worldwide, including the 2,300 living in Germany, this not possible. And yet, returning, or wanting to return, is much part of their biography as having left the country as a child. Return is a highly emotional issue, charged with existential hopes for family reunification and dreams of belonging.

In this even, visual and performance artist, activist and archivist kimura byol lemoine will talk about zer history of return. byol, who grew up in Belgium, was one of the first adoptees to be invited back on a homecoming tour by the South Korean government as early as 1989. Ze was instrumental in building ans infrastructure that would enable others to return as well- helping with the search for family members, educating the public and fighting for residency rights. Returning meant to confront bigger social issues, a struggle that would eventually change the counrty’s understanding of adoption and adoptees. In the conversation, byol will talk about zer first experiences coming back, and the return work that followed. The event will include a short films by and about byol.

Organisation: The ERC Consolidator Grant Project “Tales of the Diasporic Ordinary. Aestehetics, Affects, Archives”, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in cooperation with korientation. Netzwerk für Asiatische-Deutsche Perspektiven e.V