Cheon Shik Yang, is an artist, designer and tailor of Hanbok, and performer based in New York City. Born in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, Cheon Shik was adopted into a white family from the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, where he grew up alongside a sister, and little to no access to Korean culture aside from a single book from the Korean Ministry of Tourism. Yet “getting older, as adoptees,” he says, “feeling the call, your inner self, and yearning for” a legible connection to Korea gave Cheon Shik the motivation to seek a tactile (and textile!) thread into the country of his birth.
He tells us of how he ordered a vintage Hanbok from eBay for his 30th birthday, which, upon wearing it, sparked the inspiration to make the garments for himself. Translating museum archives through algebraic proportions, Yang began crafting his Hanboks in the various styles of Korea’s historic dynasties, reimagining Western fabrics into traditional clothing. Wearing his layered creations in daily life, Cheon Shik embodies historical reclamation in a deeply personal manner, a journey which would lead him to locate his birth family in Korea, today. Having integrated a decades-long friction between “Cheon Shik” and “Jeff,” he uses and shares his artistry in bearing witness to identity being a continuous, self-authored creation.
