"We are of the Mountain" is a line from a bilingual poem honoring my halmoni (grandmother) and her life journey as a refugee, war survivor, and immigrant. It is also a line from a Korean folk song I wrote and routinely sing to the Sandia mountains that loom above Albuquerque.

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The Sandias serve as my stand-in for Paektusan, the sacred peak at the northern border of Korea and China from which my surname is born and where my family originates. My mixed-media mural references Irworobongdo, the Korean royal painting that depicts a stylized moon, sun, and five mountain peaks. Additionally, the "We" in the title is inclusive of the people and place of Albuquerque, a community deeply defined by its own mountain landscape.

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The artwork depicts the Sandia mountains, references the five royal mountains of Korea, and honors the many cultures worldwide that ascribe spiritual significance to mountains. By design, the piece is bicultural, transcontinental, and intended to be culturally and spiritually inclusive. It is also a reflection of me—a person who is culturally hybrid and gender-fluid, with roots that trace across the Pacific Ocean and into the land of New Mexico.

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Ultimately, I am drawing an intercontinental line between land, mountain, tree, culture, and community. The mural includes 13 portraits of individual trees that live along the 35th parallel, which intersects through Albuquerque and the southern end of the Korean peninsula.