My work explores the discrepancies between my upbringing in Korea, the roles I've played as a traditionally raised woman, and my life in the West. I am trying to find balance and harmony between Korea and America. In Quiet Dissonance II I continue to juxtapose a combination of collected family photographs and borrowed images from my present environment. I began working this way in my earlier series. However, the collision of the various images are now blended; yet they still evoke the unstable worlds and radical shifts of my cultural realities. By physically illuminating the borders between two worlds, I am rewriting my personal history. Visually images are forced together within a narrow passage as a non-linear representation of the present and the past, allowing time, space, and memory to overlap.   -Tomi C. Yum   Note: Tomi C. Yum was also featured in Part I of the UNCOMMON TRAITS exhibition series.   Tomi C. Yum was born in Seoul, Korea. She received her MFA in Photography and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in NYC and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. She currently lives and works in NYC.