권희수
Heesoo Kwon

Kwon was raised in a religious family and taught to accept the strict doctrines of her family’s religion. She was baptized into catholicism before she was 100 days old, before she could make her own decision or give consent about it.  “OBEY YOUR FATHER” was a dictum that her grandmother reiterated on a daily basis. Every morning, her grandmother called Kwon and her sister to read the Bible with her before they had breakfast. Her grandmother’s stance towards the Bible was obdurate. Whenever Kwon questioned quotes in the Bible, she said that they should just believe what the Bible says first and then they would understand the meaning of FATHER’s word later. On the other days when Kwon argued with her father about his patriarchal words, her grandmother told her that she should be obedient to her FATHER whatever the situation was. FATHER is the one who brought her into this world, so she should follow him and not question him. Now Kwon realized that her family believed in Catholicism and was highly influenced by patriarchy and confucianism. She was taught to believe in the elevated concept of FATHER.


She majored in business at an all women's university. After attending university, Kwon looked outside of the institution to find her own success and be independent from her parents. Eventually, she stepped into the patent business and invented a wrapping paper for sanitary pads that conceals the product. She wanted to help women who feel uncomfortable when carrying them in public. She came to realize that her product was actually very misogynistic and even patriarchal, presuming female menstruation to be shameful, while capitalizing on this sense of shame for sales. Her idea was similar to that of typical TV commercials that advertise menstrual pads by trying to rebrand a woman’s period as something that needed to be kept extremely secret, and always angelically, virginally “clean.”


Kwon found society to be accustomed to these types of images that degrade women; even though women subject to this oppression may fail to recognize it because it’s so ingrained in everyday life. Even though she regretted giving up the work she had done so far, she eventually stopped the project. She was traumatized by the realization that what she truly believed was for social good was actually a regurgitation of the misogyny and violence she had been exposed to as a woman appearing person. She realized that assuming what others need is dangerous in social practice and that it might have effects that are very contrary to what is intended. She majored in business at an all women's university and learned how to make money without even noticing that she was using herself and her friends’ bodies and emotions as means of making money. 


Kwon started to make art in 2015 and initiated “Leymusoom”, an autobiographical feminist religion, from 2017 in the Bay Area. She started Leymusoom as her personal resistance against misogyny and patriarchy; however since she met prospective converters who asked her how they can convert to Leymusoom, it became a religion. By 2021, over 100 people had converted to Leymusoom.  Kwon interprets religion as an ideology that people follow or accept without question. From that perspective, misogyny and patriarchy are also kind of religions. Leymusoom practitioners are appropriating the terms of religion to underscore the power of patriarchy and misogyny in daily life and their will to develop feminism as their new religion. The term Leymusoom encompasses its religious community, active practitioners, each practitioner’s autonomous religion, and the movement to seek and define feminism rooted in one’s own history. Joining, practicing and being a Leymusoom means converting from patriarchy to feminism and creating and practicing personal/communal feminist rituals.


Kwon continues to practice personal rituals about her ancestors and communal rituals with other Leymusooms. Since 2018, she started to build her digital feminist utopian world by creating 3D models of her female ancestors and 3D scanning the places related to Leymusoom.