KAM REDLAWSK

Daydreamer, Chaser of Inspiration

Kam Redlawsk is an award-winning disabled industrial designer, artist, author, consultant, speaker and advocate. 

Born in South Korea, raised in Michigan as a mixed Korean and Japanese American adoptee, and living with a progressive and ultra rare muscle-wasting condition; Kam’s life is a rich tapestry of experiences that has shaped her journey — with her creativity, voice and resilience taking center stage. 

Los Angeles based artist and author, Kam is known for sharing vulnerable mini-memoirs and illustrating moments from her life; primarily thoughts on living with a progressive muscle wasting disorder that has been taking her to complete immobility since she was a teenager. 

Kam is also a debut author and illustrator with a picture book inspired by her rare disease and disability coming out in 2025.

As an advocate, Kam has been a voice for the rare disease and disabled community since 2006: using art, writing, travels and creative tools that connect us as humans. But the true inspiration behind all of Kam’s creativity and advocacy is the human condition and its fragility. 

Kam believes vulnerability is a strength. She believes we humans have more in common than differences. She believes in the importance of creativity and storytelling to gain perspective. She believes stories create the bridges within humanity, and that understanding our own emotions is not only crucial to becoming a whole person, but to understanding systemic structures, history, and human behavior and motivation, like the quest for power that is rooted in emotional landscapes.

As a Korean American adoptee, thus part of the largest international adoption group since the Korean War, Kam understands the effects of societal issues and ills rooted by systemic structures, social stigmas and ideological and societal traditions. 

Because of Kam’s varied interests and experiences, she is able to create and speak on a wide array of topics, whether she is illustrating a book, or designing cell phones, toys, consumer electronics, or the world’s cheapest prosthetic knee for under-served countries. Whether she’s speaking on design at the Kyoto Design University, a keynote speaker for National Scholastic Awards, at MIT sharing the inaccessibility of natural disaster plans in the climate change age, or in Washington DC sharing her art as an award recipient with congressional staff, Kam is a dynamic yet gentle force; a balanced and empathetic voice that is needed in today’s division. 

A daydreamer and chaser of inspiration; when Kam is not advocating for others or enacting creative ideas, you’ll find her traveling the globe in her wheelchair, in nature, on road trips scavenging for inspiration, or adventuring like skydiving, parasailing. Kam has focused on using the time she has with her body to live life and passionately explore the human condition, because how do you live when you know when one day you'll be completely immobile? 

You create. You travel. You explore. You love. You yearn. You explore. You contemplate. You write. You dream. You believe in more than yourself.  You stay open to all this world has to offer. Kam is doing all of this. and she’s just begun.

Kam's story was on the front page of the LA Times Sunday paper of June 2017. To learn more about Kam read the LA Times Feature on her life. *Please, note some information has changed since this article, such as she is no longer affiliated with ARM and an independent advocate.