Breathing Poison in One’s Own Bedroom: Motherhood and Political Agency

This poster explores the way in which political agency is shaped and enabled at the expense of motherhood through a consumer product disaster in South Korea. Hundreds people have died and many more are still struggling with acute respiratory disease from using toxic humidifier disinfectants. Oxy – a local subsidiary of British multinational company – merchandised the chemical cleanser targeting at families with children using humidifiers in dry winter climate and advertised it as “safe” even for babies. For several years since the product was introduced to the market in 2000, infants and pregnant women have died from “unknown” lung diseases.

Because of the company’s reluctance to acknowledge the risk of its products, the toxic cleanser was withdrawn from the market only in 2011 when the South Korean government agency finally linked the medical harms with the chemical household product. In comparison to Australia and the U.S., where PHMG/PGH, the major components of this cleanser, were designated as toxic and thus prohibited on spraying on person, the South Korean government passed the chemicals in the safety screening based on data submitted by the manufacturer.

This poster aims to show how safety even at home can be threatened by corporations’ reckless pursuit of profit and the government’s failure in actively regulating on hazardous chemicals. In doing so, it illuminates the work of environmental civic groups to make this invisible environmental disaster visible.