Meet Hannah Kwon: Spatial Experience Designer

Growing up in vastly different environments, from Korea, to China, to Germany, and to the United States, I constantly had to evolve and adjust to my surroundings. I had to courageously confront the unknowns of every day. Many of these challenges forced me to switch into ‘survival mode’, when I had no option but to face my fears head on in sink or swim scenarios. This came with countless challenges of feeling unsettled, disoriented, and self doubt. From a young age, I learned to put forth the effort to meet the needs of surviving my environment’s challenges.. The constant change helped me to understand the growth that results from stepping into an unknown. During my stay in Berlin for study abroad, I felt challenged as a foreign woman in a place where everyone seemed so strong and independent. In the beginning, I was in survival mode, navigating through each day. However, after a few weeks, I knew I had to get to the bottom of the loneliness and find community. I started meeting new people at cafes, churches, and bars, and to my surprise, Berliners are very accepting of new people. I was able to build deep relationships upon the opportunities I sought when I decided to take actions to thrive with what was given in my environment.

From my childhood, I naturally developed the willingness to put in the hard work to meet the end of what I’ve dedicated to. I became familiar with stepping into an unknown with an excitement to see what unfolds. I have specific renowned architecture firms in mind that I have been applying to throughout my studies at ArtCenter College of Design. Finally after four years of constantly applying, I received an interview invitation. However, by the time I saw the email, the position was taken. Results aren’t always successful and they often include disappointments, but through this experience I gained countless valuable lessons and the additional self confidence that I will receive interview opportunities again when the time is right. I took the lessons from my upbringing, and learned to apply it to my career choices. I continue to practice risk taking in reframing my skills to create new opportunities by dipping my foot into different mediums to explore my creativity, including making music and producing videos and uploading content on my YouTube platform, HOWHANNAH.

I know that there are boundless additional options to explore if I am willing to identify and challenge assumptions, allowing me to break free of expectations. After reaching a certain threshold during survival mode, I started seeing the same amount of hard work leading me to the achievements that one would identify as thriving. Risk is when you step out of your boundaries to seize an opportunity. I find myself constantly putting myself in a place of risk taking because I know risk is the factor that opens up the possibility of my next milestone. There’s two very different outcomes from risk taking, success and failure. And the most challenging part for me is the first step, allowing myself to step into the unknown. Knowing that I need to embrace my vulnerabilities in the uncharted and expose myself to the challenges that will reveal areas of growth in my character. However I constantly find myself back at the starting line of risk because of the fact that whichever the end result is, I will certainly grow from stepping outside of my comfort zone. whatever the end result may be is impertinent to this race; for the certainty of growth is only found within it.

With my inquisitive personality, I recognize the fact that the outcome of risk could be  failure but I am eager to see what the risk is going to unfold at the final destination. Becoming familiar with the unknown and after many failures from different areas in my life, I’ve found value in experiencing the growth that results. I’ve seen success only through endless risk taking which involves failures. But understanding that my biggest constraint is myself and identifying that I’m limited only by my imagination, I am able to more easily break free of my boundary.