2023  marked the 70th anniversary of the first transnational adoption from  South Korea and the critical voices of adoptees have never been louder.  In Be thankful, they said, the international artistic team  around Olivia Hyunsin Kim/ddanddarakim humorously re-appropriates  clichéd adoption narratives, confronts the erasure of their identities  and shows how those affected reclaim their own stories.

Based on interviews with experts, artists and activists from the  South Korean diaspora, who were themselves adopted as children into  Western countries, the performance traces the aftermath of a history of  global entanglements that still receives little attention. A history  that was not only characterized by charity and humanitarian aid  intentions, but also by the reproduction of colonial structures, white savior fantasies, patriarchal oppression, forced migration and human  trafficking. How do transnational adoptees reflect on their childhood in  retrospect? And what political demands arise today from the lived  experience of transnationally adopted people?

Be thankful, they said is a multidisciplinary artistic  exploration of (pop) cultural and media images of transnational adoption  and the real individual perspectives of the people affected.

04.10./ 05.10. with German Sign Language interpretation of spoken language

05.10. With audio description