Samantha Yun Wall

From Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

This body of work explores the significance of serpent women in folklore and world literature, specifically the Korean goddess Eopsin who takes the form of a black snake and protects the home, and Anyanwu, the shape-shifting healer in Octavia E. Butler’s acclaimed science fiction novel Wild Seed (1980). Wall draws connections between the Korean and African-American women in her own ancestry and global themes of protection, identity formation, and divine female power.