For his senior project, Justin Kim wanted to shed light on international students’ cultural backgrounds and their hometowns. To do this he decided to use his gift of drawing to depict their cities.

Justin is an international student from Seoul, South Korea with a love for art. With an appreciation for international students’ stories, cultures, homes, and more, he has chosen to use his talent in art to express all of these things.

He has been drawing for 15 years and is very talented.

When asked what exactly he is doing for his senior project, Justin responded, “I am making  drawings of 18 different pieces of international students’ home cities.”

These drawings are very detailed and are very time consuming to create.

Justin has completed a number of cities already, including, London, England; Shanghai, China; Florence, Italy; and Kinshasa, in the Congo.
Justin said, “I am currently working on drawing a cityscape of Istanbul.”

Istanbul is a major city in the country of Turkey.

Using his drawings, Justin wants to get rid of any misconceptions people have about the international students’ home cities.

He also wants to use his drawings to create an appreciation for international students’ cultures and homes.

When asked why he decided to draw international students’ home cities, Justin said, “I want international students’ cultural backgrounds to be appreciated. I also want students and faculty members to learn about international students’ cultural backgrounds.”

In relation to a specific reasoning in choosing the specific cities he did, Justin said, “I wanted local students to notice international students are also from urbanized communities.”

Justin said this process will take several months in order to  complete all 18 pieces.

Justin said, “I’ve learned lots of things about what their actual cities look like, and I have also learned about the cultural differences by drawing these cities, too.”