As immigrant communities continue to grapple with the brutality of ICE agents, the turmoil of detention and the fear of possible deportation, Soo Hong decided to show another side of their narrative. Instead of dwelling on the negative impact of potential repatriation, the filmmaker created two short films that present immigrants in a more hopeful and artistic fashion.
Both of Hong’s videos will screen at The Vestibule in Ballard during June. Although they’re based on the stories of immigrants, they’re presented in an abstract, nonlinear style that utilizes haiku-like poetry. Hong is also a painter who likes to dabble in mysterious, subtle imagery. Instead of sequential storytelling, though, she aims for emotional quality.
In her video titled “Chapter I: Mono-dialogue, 2025,” Hong uses disembodied images of eyes, hands and lips to convey the feeling, she said, “when light unexpectedly appears in my daily life.” She also described the piece as encountering “moments of synchronicity.”
“Chapter II: Bright Tongue, 2026” showcases seven immigrants hailing from Eritrea, Japan, China, Iran, Argentina, India and Costa Rica.
While all are local residents, they also represent global diversity.
Hong begins the film with a statement challenging her participants: “Think about the brightest thing in your life.”
Then, each subject ruminates on that “brightest thing” in their own personal way. Hong’s approach to production was unorthodox yet intimate.
“I found seven people,” she said. “I went to their places and shared stories.”
After listening to each one, she wrote their narratives—“like a fairy tale, some like poetry and some like essays,” she explained. “Everyone has an immigration story,” said Hong. “Some were pretty rough. Some were easy. All came (here) for a better life.”
But it struck her as tragic when several told her that they had “lost the memory about how they moved here,” she said.
That actually helped her avoid making a typical immigrant story. Rather, she focused on her subjects’ psychological state of mind, like how the air smelled when they first arrived in their new country.
At a second meeting with the participants, Hong read their stories with them, editing as they went along.
“For each person, sound was the key,” she said, pointing out that their distinct accents is what they carry from their past.
“I want the audience to listen to the voices more than look at their faces,” Hong added.
Another short film accompanies “Chapter II: Bright Tongue, 2026”. Titled “Illuminate”, it’s a surreal study of Hong’s personal journey using images to convey hope and empathy through the medium of light. Including herself as a nomadic outsider, she depicts immigrants as dreamers.
It’s easy to understand why Hong focuses on immigration stories when considering the number of times she’s changed residences since her birth in Seoul Korea. She was just 10-months-old when her family left for New Jersey due to her father’s job. For several years, they lived on both coasts of the U.S., including in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Baltimore.
“My mom said that every 10 months, we lived in a different place,” Hong stated.
At three-years-old, she and her family returned to Korea. But, by the time she turned five, they moved to Milan Italy where she attended kindergarten. When Hong was eight, her family moved to London England before returning to Korea where she started second grade and, eventually, completed her secondary school education.
“Before second grade, I had no foundation with the Korean culture or language,” Hong revealed.
She described her father as being positive, cheerful and adventurous while recounting that her mother was the efficient parent who planned everything. As expats, the family suffered financially and, once, when they had no furniture, they cleverly improvised with cardboard boxes draped in fabric.
Her family moved so much that Hong became a loner, but she thrived in her isolation.
“I was very okay with not having a friend,” she admitted.
Following high school, Hong was an exchange student for one semester at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Design in Baltimore.
“I really liked it,” she remembered. “The facilities were different than in Korea.”
But she couldn’t afford the tuition for international students, so she returned to Korea and completed her BA in furniture and product design at Hongik University. However, she found that industry to be too oppressive.
“Furniture design was too commercial, too corporate,” said Hong.
So, she pursued a master’s degree at Central Saint Martins in London while staying with a cousin living there.
“London was great!” she exclaimed. “British pop was going on. It was wild!”
Initially, Hong thought she would like to work in film or graphic design. She wanted to make movies, but there wasn’t much money in it so she started drawing.
“Breaking all the rules as a graphic designer, I started to make a kind of film and conceptual art,” she said. “I was going on that route. Then, I stopped and switched to just drawing.”
After graduating, Hong returned to Korea to work in television advertising. She then segued into a job with a startup company doing GUI (Graphic User Interface) now known as UX (User Experience).
Meanwhile, Hong contracted freelance assignments to work on street designs as well as illustrations for skateboard companies and corporate entities like Nike, Puma and Adidas. She also illustrated for fashion and film magazines. At the same time, she taught at a university.
“Before (now), I was doing commissioned artwork, but never making artwork for myself,” she said.
Additionally, she explored photography. “I always loved photography,” said Hong whose uncle was a professional photographer. “I would go out shooting and working in the darkroom with him.”
She had been saving money to go to France and study photography, but wound up getting married instead.
When her husband accepted a job in Shanghai in 2010, Hong reluctantly gave up all of her jobs. After moving, she began reading—something she wasn’t particularly interested in before moving to China, she admitted.
“They blocked the Internet, so no Facebook, no Youtube,” she said about living in Shanghai. “We had a lot of books. My husband is a reader.”
Because she was isolated, she focused on raising her then two-year-old daughter and learning Chinese. But most of all, she painted because it was the easiest medium to use considering there was no internet for electronic art.
She frequented art supply stores and, even with her limited Chinese, easily purchased paints, brushes and canvasses.
After nine years in Shanghai, Hong, her husband and daughter landed in the Northwest. A resident of Washington state for eight years now, Hong has exhibited at numerous local venues as well as abroad. Her future plans include the continuation of recreating the immigrant experience through visual media like film, photography and painting. For Hong, art clearly imitates life.
Exhibition : June 6 – 27th, 2026
Opening reception | June 6th, 3:00 – 5:00 pm. Live and Panel discussion | June 19th, 7:00 pm. The Vestibule , 5919 15th Avenue NW, Seattle WA 98107
