Remembering Seonjeong Yi Lebrun: Mourning with narratives of care

Abstract

It is hard to coherently narrate traumatic memories as they are intensely emotional and fragmented. I created this narrative inquiry in the hope of enacting care and performing mourning for the unexpected death of Seonjeong Yi Lebrun (1983‐2017). Seonjeong was a Korean-born art education researcher in Canada whose work exemplified how artistic approaches to narrative evoke empathy and connectivity. Her research spanned arts-based self-study to participatory action research about comfort women (Korean sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War). In performing mourning for Seonjeong through examining her research, I endeavour to have my research possibly initiate a new form of arts-based collective care for her, comfort women and those suffering from other forms of trauma.