Catalogues - Awakening

Awakening

an exhibition of contemporary Korean photo-media

Published: Australian Centre for Photography, 2001

Specially commissioned by the ACP, Awakening is the first exhibition dedicated to contemporary Korean photography to be shown in Australia. The exhibition has been curated by the Seoul-based artist, curator and academic, Bohnchang Koo, and introduces seven of the most active mid-career photographic practitioners of the past decade. Through a variety of photo-media, they express social, environmental and emotional sensibilities that are very much of the moment in Korea.

Bohnchang Koo's and Byunghun Min's black and white prints reflect Taoist traditions, which have been a fundamental part of the Korean psyche, through imagery that suggests oriental ink drawing. Il Hong and Jongmyung Lee photograph urban landscapes in the process of rapid change, while Jehak Yu expresses the feelings of isolation felt by the individual in a fast-moving contemporary society. Heinkuhn Oh captures a specific group of women (the Ajumma) who, in middle age and with their families grown up, try to find a place within the male chauvinistic Confucian tradition which still exists in Korean society. Finally, Atta Kim creates works that express Buddhist traditions with modern colours and iconography through the construction of strong metaphoric tableaux and the recurrent device of the glass display case.

IMAGE © Byunghun Min Weeds 1996