Project I: HOPE By SaeRi
Encouraging Girls to Dream.
I started the project Hope By SaeRi, out of a belief that humanity deserves to know hope always exists even in the most challenging situations.
Hope By SaeRi bags are designed to raise awareness and funds to support the plight of Bangladeshi girls, who not only face extreme poverty, but are expected to marry by the age of 13 to avoid becoming a burden to their family.
Photo credit © Speak Up for the Poor
Project II: Silver Spouse Abuse
Dec, 23 2013. Korea Daily ChoongAng il bo
Ethics in everyday life, Space Haam, Seoul, Korea, 2012
Suffering in Silence No More.
As the elderly age demographic continues to grow, social issues that previously only troubled younger relationships now begin to affect those of seniors. Poor, immigrant, women and non-English speakers are the most susceptible to the inevitable escalation and repeat patterns that typify domestic violence. In communities where green-card issues perpetually complicate matters, victims are even less likely to report brutality.
Silver Spouse Abuse is a portrait of elderly indignity. A story of Koreatown senior who suffered in silence, but brave enough to final speak up. Ms. Oh is a 76 year-old who sustained unconscionable beatings from her abusive 85 years-old spouse for failing to perform reprehensible acts of servitude.
She endured egregious violations of her basic human rights, for fear of jeopardizing her immigration status.
SaeRi Cho Dobson's artwork features typographic bruises reveal the heinous actions of a violent spouse who threatened her with deportation. Dobson's poster displays her story within Los Angeles’ Koreatown community to bring awareness to his wrongdoing, and dissuade other seniors who see their own actions being portrayed.
Project III: 7 Deadly Seams
Exposing a Great American Nightmare.
This mixed media piece by artist Saeri Cho Dobson, is inspired by a notorious lawsuit known as ‘The Great American Pants-Suit’, a frivolous court case epitomizing a worrying and rapidly-growing epidemic of immigrants being ‘taken to the cleaners’.
In 2007 a Korean family dry cleaning business was sued by a Washington D.C. administrative law judge to the sum of 67million dollars, over a pair of $10 trousers. For every case that makes it to the courts, there are thousands settled beforehand by hard-working yet fearful immigrants who are scammed, abused, injured, and oppressed in their modest attempt at the Great American Dream.
In fact, there have been so many cases of alteration litigation and Haute Couture fraud upon unseasoned cleaners, that small-claims court moderation has now become customary in providing un-biased culpability analysis. Dry cleaners desperately seek some form of certification that exonerates them in an industry that puts them squarely at the center of the blame matrix. Customer complaints, verbal abuse and unreasonable expectations wear them threadbare. Ambulance-chasing employees exploit them for falsified workers’ comp claims. But perhaps the most difficult incidents to contest are those caused by unscrupulous clothing manufacturers who are the real villains responsible for most dry cleaner-ruined garments. Fake designer labels, poorly-cut cloth, color-bleeding fabric s and generic garment tags with erroneous cleaning instructions, all point the finger back to the innocent dry cleaner.
Even though the infamous pants-suit was finally dismissed, it did create a backlash through the dry cleaning industry that caused the words ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ and ‘Same Day Service’ to be systematically removed from shop windows, and relegated to signage artifacts of the past. Catalyzed by a story of greed, my work offers up a multi-cultural expose of injustice—revealed through six more cautionary tales. Frayed spirits and tattered lives make up the fabric of this waking dream, a Great American Nightmare: Seven Deadly Seams.
FUTURE PROJECTS
By SaeRi, Inc. is always looking for new opportunities to partner with artists, entrepeneurs, leaders, non-profits and others who want to see the world change. If you are interested in starting a project with us or getting involved with a current one, feel free to contact us.