– a more detailed biography –

My name is Laha, born in Seoul, South Korea (1976) and adopted at the age of five by a family in the Netherlands, which has been my home ever since. 

Throughout the years, I’ve remained in touch with my Korean family, keeping that connection alive across time and continents. 
 
My childhood was both rich and challenging. At fifteen, I left my Dutch family and entered the world of institutions, a period that felt like the end of my dreams and any possible bright future. Or so it seemed. 

At twenty-one, I began to dream again. I was accepted into the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where I found a community that felt like home. Through painting and drawing, I discovered art as a path of healing and self-reclamation, and graduated cum laude. 

Since 2006, I have worked as an artist between Seoul and Amsterdam, exhibiting my work, participating in artist residencies, and teaching at Ewha University. 

From 2009 to 2018, I collaborated with UNICEF as an artist-filmmaker, traveling worldwide to create art with young people about their hopes and dreams. 

During that time, I founded a non-profit foundation dedicated to interdisciplinary art projects supporting children and youth in expressing their aspirations. One of the highlights was Irbid Exchange in Jordan, during the Syrian war, a year-long collaboration between local and international artists, where Syrian, Jordanian, Palestinian, and Dutch youngsters created a newspaper together. The project was commissioned by UNICEF and UNHCR. 

Since 2019, I have been pioneering Future Me in the Netherlands, an ongoing art and empowerment program for young people. You can read more about this below. 

Movement has always been an essential part of my life  from gymnastics and dance to running. Until one day, in 2008, a sticker on a yoga studio door caught my eye: ALL ONE. 
After my first class, I was hooked. My breath, voice, and thoughts had slowed down; a new dimension opened within me. 

Yoga became another profound journey of self-discovery, a way of traveling inside the body, always new, always changing. 

Today, in 2025, I walk the path of a wandering Yogini and artist, devoted to Shakti, the Great Mother, the force behind all creation, transformation, and dissolution. 

I divide my time between the Netherlands and Hawai‘i, offering Yoga, art, and retreats dedicated to self-discovery, love for life, and connection with the sacred pulse of life. 

Yoga is where I return home, again and again, to the stillness that breathes us all.