Name: Kate Hers

Age: 33

Location: Berlin, Germany

Occupation: Visual artist

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Mount Clemens, a working class suburb of Detroit. I never knew any Korean Americans until I moved to Chicago when I was 18.

Describe your job.
I am a visual artist mostly working in drawing collages and video interventions. Right now I am working on several artistic research projects which brought me to Germany.
Describe your current city.
Berlin is poor, but sexy.  It’s a volatile place to live, exciting and inspiring, but cold and rainy, which is definitely a change from Los Angeles, where I was just living last year. This 9th of November is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I can’t help but be reminded that Korea has yet to be re-unified.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
In 2002, for a performance intervention in Seoul, I dressed up in a high school girl uniform, made myself look pregnant, and attempted to maniacally laugh for an hour in the Myong-dong shopping district. The police came after 20 minutes  (unplanned) and dragged me away.
What was your greatest life moment?
I think my greatest life moments are still being shaped: living in the present and having an awareness of my life’s work as a human being.

What’s your pet peeve?
When after I tell them I’m from the USA, German people ask, “No, where are you really from?”

What’s your guilty pleasure?
Glee.

Any secret talents?
I’m really good at crossing my eyes. I can even just cross one eye while the other is looking straight forward. Gross and weird, but cool! Is that regarded as a talent? Mmmh…maybe not.

If you could meet any Korean or Korean American, who would it be?
The revolutionary political activist, Alexandra Petrovna Kim, who was also the first Korean communist. Interestingly, she was adopted and raised by a Russian after her father passed away.

What would you like to see eradicated from this world?
Overseas Korean adoption, it’s time for Korea to take responsibility for taking care of it’s own children and develop social welfare, especially as the 15th largest economy in the world.

What’s on your iPod?
Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Go Karen O!) , Music Go Music, This American Life podcasts, some lectures by the Dalai Lama and an English-German Dictionary.

What words do you live by?
“In the world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.” – Frantz Fanon
I am KoreAm and proud because we cannot be straightforwardly labeled. We have so many different skills, talents, occupations and interests. We hold different political positions, religions, lifestyles and as a Diasporic people, we live scattered all over the world, holding different passports, languages, and cultures. Nevertheless, what I would not mind being typecast as a Korean is to be extremely multi-dimensional and tolerant of others.

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