JAYON YOU I Interdisciplinary Thinker & Essayist

THE PROBLEM OF INTEGRATION

I gasp when I hear that the failure of integration in Europe only applies to Muslims and other groups like Asians ‘who don’t cause any troub

WHAT IS TRUE POWER?

I came to realize what true power was only recently. It was when I wanted to write, but felt powerless to write, which set me off on an...

ILLUSION OF IDENTITY

I had taken ‘identity’ for granted growing up in America. Everyone was searching for their ‘identity’ — the truth of who they were. That...

DEFENSIVE SOCIETY

I recently learned that a narcissist is someone who is more invested in the protection of one’s image rather than the nourishment of...

HIERARCHY AMONG CULTURES

Given how homogenous South Korea is and the issue of diversity was never consciously discussed or taught, I received my first racism...

MULTICULTURAL INDIVIDUAL II NATION

25 years after my immigration to America and not allowing myself to look back but only look forward, I did fear that I had lost...

CULTURALLY RELIGIOUS SOCIETY

When I moved to America, I finally got to see firsthand what was meant by a society that was ‘secular’ and ‘plural’. It meant that there...

FEAR OF LOSING INHERITED CULTURE

Charles Taylor, in his essay Interculturalism or Multiculturalism? highlights the underlying 'fear' present in ethnic nations becoming...

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ABOUT

Interdisciplinary thinker & essayist JAYON YOU takes photographs with her mind's eye — framing, bringing to a sharp focus, making visible what would otherwise remain

muddled or invisible.

She holds a B.A. in PPE [Philosophy, Politics & Economics] from University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Social & Cultural Anthropology from Oxford University & a Master of Design from University of Pennsylvania. She is also trained as a classical pianist & studied with Solomon Mikowsky & Byron Janis in New York City.

Her writing and concept based works give synthesis to her interdisciplinary training & her wide-ranging intellectual & artistic interests. They converge on intersection between the individual & society that fuses the personal with the critical in direct engagement with urgent issues of our time. In 2020, she published a collection of 24 personal & critical essays, A SOCIETY FULL OF MULTICULTURAL INDIVIDUALS, which uses her own experience of immigration to America at the age of 13 as a critical frame for illuminating the issue of multiculturalism both in the context of Europe & America.

Committed to education of youth, she taught as a design professor at a liberal arts college in Midwest America (Drury University) between 2010-2015, where she got to teach not only design majors but also students across all majors in direct engagement with urgent issues of our time. Since 2015, she has been based in Berlin & continued to teach online — against the backdrop of refugee crisis in Europe, the shifting ethos & increasing polarization in America & the rise of populism & decline of liberal democracy around the globe — engaging students in critical analysis of WHERE WE STAND NOW & social visioning of HOW WE CAN MOVE FORWARD.

Her work focuses on TWO POINTS OF UNITY on the level of both symptoms & cause: Raising 1) SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS on 'what kind of society do we want to create?' 'how do we ensure equality, fairness & justice for ALL?,' which brings everyone together in a shared pursuit of shared ideals AND 2) INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS empowering individuals with the tools to connect with their true source of power, without which the outer 'symptoms' of tribalism & hierarchy would persist. She is the founder of SOCIAL IMAGINARY & TRUE POWER WORKSHOP.

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