Mark Bigelow.  Blossoms Across the Ocean

2021. Acrylic on Board and Cast Resin. 8X58X30cm. 

Adoption is a complicated situation involving opportunity and loss. People are dealing with some of the most tender human relationships, situations, and feelings. It gets even more complicated when adoptions take place across international borders. Differences of culture, power, wealth, historical relationships, and law all come into play. Who gains and who loses in international adoption? Over the last few years, a story has been in the US news of adoptions from the RMI taking place, sometimes under fraudulent circumstances or leading to tragic consequences. When I lived in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) as a young man, a young Marshallese woman lived with my family in the US for a year to attend school. She later returned to the RMI to live with her family. Plumeria is the national flower of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, each blossom having five petals.