Seo Soo-Kyoung was born in Gwangju, South Korea in 1977. She attended Gwangju Art High School from 1992 to 1996. From 1996 to 2000 she studied at Chosun University, also in Gwangju, receiving the award for the best student of the year upon her graduation. She left South Korea the same year to take up her studies at the Universität der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin, in 2001, as a member of the class of famous painter Georg Baselitz. In 2002, while she was still attending her basic course, the South Korean embassy commissioned SEO to design the United Buddy Bear on behalf of her native country. Together with the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, she unveiled this Buddy Bear at t...