2023 IKAA Korea Gathering
Rethinking What’s Possible
The 2023 IKAA Korea Gathering
July 10th to 16th 2023
In July of 2023, we hosted the 6th International Korea Gathering in Seoul. It was the first since after the pandemic. This time we explored the Gangnam area south of the Han river where most of the more than 40 sessions were held at COEX Convention & Exhibition Center. We welcomed a diverse group of over 450 attendees from across the globe. Some adoptees were returning back to Korea for the first time while others have been back many times before. The age range of adoptee attendees spanned across nearly five decades. And, we realized more attendance from adoptees living in Korea and from other international adoptee communities.
The theme for this year’s conference was “Rethinking What’s Possible”. During the week we hosted the sixth International Symposium on Korean Adoption Studies (IKAS), community dinners with tasting menu of Korean food, group tours, film screenings, a creative arts program, a concert at Nodeul Island with adoptee performers and a family program in addition to the wide variety of sessions.
The Gathering would not have happened without the efforts of the IKAA planning committee, supporting teams, presenters and performers, and our sponsors. We are deeply grateful for your efforts in bringing together our incredible community in Korea and to everyone who attended for creating unforgettable memories and meaningful connections!
What Attendees are Saying
Choose Your Own Adventure
The adoptee community is multi-generation and global. Some attendees are coming back for their 5th Korea Gathering, while others are coming back to Korea for the first time. We expect participants to have varying interests. Our approach is to offer a wide variety of programming that appeals to a range of interests. Think of our programming like a buffet. There will be a lot to choose from and you can decide what you want to do. There is no need to do everything and there will be opportunities to try things that may not be familiar.
Welcoming Newcomers
Are you newly exploring the adoptee community? Will this be your first trip back to Korea? No worries! Let us help you prepare for this trip. We have designed intentional programming for newcomers that includes virtual sessions to help connect attendees prior to Korea and a newcomers welcome event which was well received when it launched in 2019. IKAA will also be providing guidance on how to navigate Seoul and recommendations on things to see and foods to eat! Virtual sessions for attendees will begin in May.
Expanded Programming – Something For Everyone
Pre & Post Gathering Virtual Sessions
New to this IKAA Korea Gathering is the inclusion of virtual sessions before and after the weeklong event in Korea. Prior to the start of the Korea Gathering, we’ll be hosting virtual sessions to help connect, engage, and inform registered attendees. Newcomers are encouraged to attend! After the Korea Gathering, we will also be hosting post-event virtual sessions to encourage reflection and to facilitate post-event discussion.
Newcomers Welcome Event
In 2019, we launched a welcome event for newcomers to the IKAA Korea Gathering and large adoptee community events. The event will be held at the beginning of the week on Monday July 10th and is intended to facilitate connection among newcomers in a friendly and supportive environment.
Opening Ceremony and Reception
The Opening Ceremony will be held on Tuesday July 11th and will feature presentations and remarks from adoptee leaders and allies in the community. This session will also service as a preview to the rest of the week’s programming. In the afternoon, we’ll gather together for light appetizers and drinks.
Presentations, Workshops, and Discussion Groups
IKAA Gatherings provide the opportunity for participants to explore a wide range of topics related to adoption, the adoptee experience, and the themes of the Gathering. This includes birth family search, post reunion experiences and support, empowering adoptee voices, storytelling, navigating relationships with adoptive family members, mentorship, stereotypes / biases, adoptee activism, living in Korea as an adopted Korean, DNA testing, and more.
Some of these sessions will be presentations / panels, while others will be more interactive workshops and discussion groups. This year we will be featuring more perspectives from birth family members and adoptees living in Korea.
Creative Arts Programming
We are hosting a new Creative Arts Program at the IKAA Korea Gathering in 2023. In these sessions, adopted Koreans share their artistic talents as an expression of their adoption journeys. As a multi-disciplinary arts program, Koreans adopted to various countries will provide opportunities for the community to engage in a range of mediums which include visual arts, performance arts, and literary arts.
Community Dinners
Hanjeongsik restaurants in Seoul offer a culinary experience deeply rooted in Korean tradition. It is a dining style that presents an array of prepared dishes, showcasing the rich flavors and diversity of Korean cuisine. We’ll be hosting multiple, large group community hanjeongsik dinners. Participants sign up for one of the time slots during the week. Dinner will be covered.
Family Programming
With the increased number of adoptees bringing their families to the Gatherings, IKAA introduced a “Family Program” in 2013. The Program includes family friendly activities, and presents opportunities for joining families to bond and jointly explore Seoul.
Film Screenings
We’ll be screening a selection of films that explore the complexity of the adoptee experience and touch on themes relating to relationships with birth family members, the history of Korean adoption, and the unique experiences of traveling back to Korea as an adoptee. To add to the richness of the event, some of the films will be accompanied by Q&A sessions with those involved in the films. Feature Films showing at CGV include Return to Seoul, Geographies of Kinship, and Mother Dear.
Amazing Race Scavenger Hunt
An “Amazing Race” style competition/scavenger hunt in Seoul, where groups of participants go to various locations around the city, completing activities and tasks to see who can successfully complete the most in the least amount of time.
Baseball Game
Get ready for a Korean baseball experience at Jamsil Stadium! Attendees can sign up to join us for an exciting game experience with an electric atmosphere that’s not to be missed. Tickets will be covered for registered attendees.
Closing Reception
On the last day of the Gathering, we’ll gather for a closing reception.
Closing Celebration
Come party with us as we celebrate the close to this week-long event!
Sixth International Korean Adoption Studies Symposium
The Sixth International Symposium on Korean Adoption Studies (IKAS) will be held at the 2023 IKAA Korea Gathering on July 12th, 2023. We recognize and celebrate the interdisciplinary nature of Korean adoption studies with scholars from both the humanities and social and behavioral sciences. This research also engages with issues of race and ethnicity, migration and diaspora, gender and family, and globalization and transnationalism. The day-long symposium will bring together scholars from around the world who are conducting research in the field of Korean adoption studies. We also welcome submissions from scholars creating linkages between transnational adoptions from Korea and other sending countries such as China, Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Russia. We firmly believe in the dissemination of Korean adoption studies scholarship to a public audience to address the gap between research and practice. We particularly welcome research that is jargon-free and accessible to a general audience.
IKAS is open to the public for a door price of 60,000 KRW or 30,000 KRW for students.
Links to Digital Program and Digital Program (gray scale)
Research Symposium Planning Team & Presentations
Presentations, Workshops, and Discussion Groups
Comic Reading of 'Pyeongtaek' // Meg O'Shea
Meg O’Shea walks us through an autobiographical work written in the last weeks of her two years’ living in Korea.
Creatively Express your Identity through Art // Karin Lim
Karin Lim facilitates an art therapy workshop using mixed media collage, writing and sharing to guide adoptees to their “authentic voice” and greater self-awareness.
Unraveling our identities: Re-knotting with each other // Marie Gong Li Blouin, Tong Zhou Lafrance, and Marie-Christine Peiyu Savard
Chinese Adoptees of The Soft Gong Collective create an opportunity to connect with Korean adoptees in a discussion about the intersectional identities of Asian adoptees while creating a work of solidarity through the arts of Chinese and Korean knot making.
Collaborative Art Project: Journeys + Migrations // Jennifer Joy Swedell
Jennifer Joy Swedell constructs a collaborative art piece created by attendees which will be displayed during the IKAA gathering.
Claiming Your Narrative Writing Workshop // Alice Stephens
Alice Stephens speaks about her adoption journey, her novel Famous Adopted People, and leads us in exploring our own adoption stories through creative writing prompts.
Exploring Multiple Identities Through Movement // Mihyun Lee
Mihyun Lee leads us in growing awareness of how our bodies express identity through movement.
Seeds From The East: The Korean Adoptee Portrait Project Drawing & Poetry Through The Senses // A.D. Herzel
A.D. Herzel leads a drawing and writing exercise to explore our Korean identities inspired by her work in Korean Adoptee Portraits.
To my imaginary twin // Laure Badufle
“if we stayed in Korea, would we still be us?”. Laure Badufle invites us to explore our double identity as transracial adoptees by recreating memories of her imaginary twin sister, consisting of drawings, sound recordings and pictures based on real or imaginary places and objects.
Adoption Healing through Sound and Touch // Sarah MeeRan Cave
Come experience a violin sound healing, safe touch, and intentional grounding visualization techniques to encourage healing around adoption wounds.
QT*KAD - Queer Korean Adoptee Artists sharing narratives of care and love // Timm Shik Therre, Kim Stoker, Byol Kimura, Alex Myung
In this panel four queer adopted Korean artists discuss how their intersecting identities have played a part in their artistic careers and inspired them to bring visibility to the transracial/transnational adoptee community.
Cultivating Space for Adoptee Voices // Liz Kleinrock and Patrick Armstrong
Liz Kleinrock and Patrick Armstrong lead this session on what cultivating adoptee spaces can look like, as well as how to support adoptees of all ages in speaking their truths.
LIVE-ing in Korea //Antonia Giordano, Barbara Kim, JK Song, Amy Chu, Luke McQueen
Discussion with adopted Koreans who have been living in Korea on how to move and maintain a balanced life in Korea.
Childfree by Choice or by Circumstance: A New Legacy // Kerry Bondy
A safe space for adoptees without children to build community as they share the challenges of being childfree.
DNA Testing and Privacy Issues: What Does This Mean for You? // Delight Kim Roberts
Learn about the privacy issues inherent in DNA testing and how you can make an informed decision about sharing your personal data.
Family Matters: Navigating Relationships with Adoptive Family Members // SunAh Laybourn, Amanda Assalone, Patrick Armstrong, and Shaun Hardwick
The panelists will discuss key moments in their adoptee exploration, how they’ve navigated sharing those moments with their adoptive parents, and the strategies they’ve used to successfully overcome challenges.
Adoptee Organizing 101 // Taneka Hye Wol Jennings and Kate Firestone
Meet like-minded peers and gain knowledge and skills in the basics of organizing issue campaigns that advance human rights for adoptees, and intersecting communities.
Age Break Out Group Discussions
Providing a space for adoptees to share their own stories and hear experiences of other adoptees in age similar group settings.
How to Become Competent at the Korean Language as an Adult // Robert Holloway
Attend this workshop to learn techniques on how to become adequate at speaking Korean in your adulthood.
Early Wavers // Estelle Cooke-Sampson, Leslie Griep, Allen Majors, Moderated by Deann Borshay Liem
A lively conversation with adoptees sent to the U.S. during the early wave – 1950s and early 1960s.
Building Community and Mapping the Life Course of Adoption: Revelations and Reflections // Hollee McGinnis
Provide an emergent space for the community to sit with some of the preliminary findings from a community-embedded and engaged project seeking to map the life course of adoption and the role of adoptee-led groups and spaces on adoptees in adulthood.
Birth Family Search // NCRC
Overview and discussion of Korean Birth Family Search services from the Korean government agency overseeing family search.
How one Adoptee's investigation of her switch case led to the reunion of twins with their birth father // Rebecca Kimmel
Viewing and discussion of a SBS documentary of how one Adoptee’s investigation into her switch case ultimately led to the reunion of Adoptee twins with their birth father in Korea.
Film: Hangul Blues // Daan Vree
The life of 28-year-old Petra is turned upside down when she receives a letter and a picture from her biological mother from Korea.
Ibyang International Network: Global Activism // Ibyang International Network (IbyangIN)
Ibyang International Network (IbyangIN) is a newly-formed nonprofit that advocates for the rights of overseas adopted Koreans in South Korea.
How do East-Asian women face stereotypes/biases in the workplace? // Christine Reinders and others
Shedding light on the challenges driven by stereotypes and biases we face due to race and gender in the workplace across geographies.
Film: RE KNOWN Reflections on adoption // Kim Soo bok Cimaschi
Documentary about adoption perspectives in which the adoption subjects like adoptees, adoptive parents, adoption agency representatives, and social workers talk about adoption topics.
Navigating Academic Institutions as Adoption Researchers // Jason D. Reynolds (Taewon Choi)
Connecting transracial Korean adoptee (and other transracially adopted individuals) researchers and academics with other adoption scholars from around the world.
Partners Session
Discussion group for spouses/partners of adoptees.
Empowering Your Birth Family Search // Layne Fostervold
In this session, we will discuss some of the basic steps of birth family search (BFS), as well as alternative options to agency and government procedures, so that you can feel more proactive in your search.
Certificate of Family Relations and Impacts to Inheritance // Soyi Kim
This session will explore lawsuits aimed at the correction of the certificate of family relations since some adopted Koreans were adopted with false documents stating that they were orphans. Issues around inheritance will also be discussed since the correction of the certificate of family relations is directly related to inheritance.
Perspectives of birth families and adoptees post-reunion // Jannie Westermann and birth family members, Jeon Hyunsuk, Shannon Doona Bae
By inviting a panel of speakers composed of adoptees and birth family members in reunion, and by offering audience members a space to share their own experiences, we hope to open an honest discussion of the joys, difficulties, and all things in-between, that are commonly experienced in reunion. We ask our audience to imagine with us how post-reunion needs might be met by related organizations and government programs.
Empowering FLINTA // Mirae kh RHEE
Discursive presentation mixing both personal, historical, and contemporary perspectives will be followed by an exchange with attendees to discuss our intersectionality and experiences with discrimination in our birth country. Note: Only FLINTA (Female, Lesbian, Intersex, Trans and Agender) may attend this safe space discussion circle.
