All images were taken by large format camera. The print size is 50inch x 60inch.
"A Square" Series, Summary Note
The objects I photographed is a small park located within a living space in downtown.
I paid attention to images seen from a bird?s-eye view and proceed working on them. While working, I focused on not relating special stories to them but presenting spaces. I think that the pictures presented that way can be a pathway to remind viewers of their thoughts on familiar places. In particular, their thought or discussions regarding park. The parks seen here and the details taken of bird's eye view will reflect characteristics of downtown area and distorted realities. In addition, I also presume that they will also reveal fabricated Korean-style space and stark realities of democracy in a more comic way.
"A Square" Series, Photo Note
What grabbed my attention was a park in downtown area. The works whose name is "a square"was done between the year 2004 and 2006, and initial works began in 2004 when I graduated from university and entered graduate school as I took interest in a bird?s eye view near construction sites in downtown. At that time, the work was limited to copying and photographing the view seen on the roadside, and exotic and utopian image of the view looked very interesting. From then on, my initial focus on a bird?s-eye-view of construction sites and what?s happening around those areas shifted into an observation on adequate places where the view turned into a real-life scene, which shape my current work style. As for background of the content, I can probably relate it to a place where I am living right now. Though my hometown was Samcheonpo in Kyungnam, I was living on the 13th floor of Jugong Apartment in Chang-dong, Seoul while working on it. Sea is always within sight in my hometown, and afforestation rate is also high. Actually, this time last year, there was not many branded large-complex apartments in my neighborhood. I think that my scope of works have been narrowed as I became interested in how parks and resting places in neighborhood harmonize with living environment in a big city with not much afforestation rate as I came across those familiar sights around that time. During the work process, I observed parks located near the living environment.
The word "park" used here is different from what we normally call a big park. It means a small park as the title "a square"suggests. In dictionary, square is a flat open space or a shape with four sides that are all the same length and four corners that are all right angles, or units of length when referring to the area of something. Each of the images shown in the work is an area that consists of a small park with quadrangle shape or an open space, or a place surrounded by them. As you can see in preface to exhibition or each of the images, the objects I photographed is a small park located within a living space in downtown. In fact, such a place is also very ambiguous to define. Though I will mention it later, this is a space whose atmosphere is similar to that of a park but whose usage or size is sharply different from that of a park. Still, it is hard to define such a place as a courtyard or a garden. Technically, it lies between an agora or a park in ancient Greece. Normally, it is hard to make discussions or take rest in such a place; it is viewed only as a means to boost property prices. I needed a symbolic word to include both my attitude and viewpoint to describe the nature of this kind of work. I think it might be appropriate to call the park shown in the work a square of smaller sense. In an extreme case, it can refer to a small resting place or a central park frequently seen within an apartment complex. The atmosphere of a place like a park which I mentioned previously, can be explained by the characteristics of a space shown in my work. Though the park is originally designed to serve a purpose of public health, rest and play, it is increasingly being used as a means of accumulation of capital or commercialization. For people in modern days who are pressed in terms of time and space,taking a rest in small downtown area doesn't seem to have any meaning at all. Their only interest lies in pushing up property of areas nearby and pursuing environmental benefits of a place where they belong. In addition, it isn?t easy for them to take time to move to an outskirt and have leisure time and rest. In these comic realities, they observe something foreign and exotic in the redeployed green space designed to create an atmosphere of a park and a city area created by various attempts made within the space. These kinds of attempts inevitably lead to roughly made parks and structures, creating unrefined scenes here and there. To take a view of the area, at first glance, it looks like a bird-eye?s view, which is quite interesting. Trees and resting places spotted between bleak concrete and structures remind me of Lego models. Future-oriented and unrealistic utopian images shown in a bird?s eye view spread before us. In fact, it is dystopian in reality, but people won?t admit it.
Here, I paid attention to images seen from a bird?s-eye view and proceed working on them. While working, I focused on not relating special stories to them but presenting spaces I mentioned previously in a real way. Generally, it?s not often the case where you see things from above. When you observe those pictures, you will slowly begin to realize that there is something very unnatural about this; you face exotic and heterogeneous scenes different from a real park you heard from the story. Occasionally, you might feel comfortable or bad (Feelings like "are we really living in this kind of place?," or "Is it true that I myself in this place is just one of those entities shown in the picture?" etc). I think that the pictures presented that way can be a pathway to remind viewers of their thoughts on familiar places. In particular, their thought or discussions regarding park.
The parks seen here and the details taken of bird's eye view will reflect characteristics of downtown area and distorted realities. In addition, I also presume that they will also reveal fabricated Korean-style space and stark realities of democracy in a more comic way.
