The exhibit was of Sarah Moon (who sounds Korean by name, but is British by birth and French for all purposes).
Common themes:
1. women in high fashion
2. birds (a plethora of parrots. a fair few seagulls. one toucan. pelicans. flamingos. herons. at least 3 peacocks)
3. nipples (see below)
4. naked backs (see below)
5. ballet
6. swimmers
Fairly typical of her fashion photography.
Most of the women in her photos are pictured from behind. Their faces are almost never shown, but their backs are almost always bare and on display.
Some of the backs were photographed in contorted positions, which reminded me a little bit of Edgar Degas. Like this painting, only with more uncertainty about what position the subject is in.
Again, face is (at least partially) covered/obscured. Nipples are another common theme. In some of the photos, the nipples are actually visible; in others, they are obscured. But the nipples are always present.
Normal people/objects photographed as though they were diseased/dying/dead. This is only a pockmarked statue, but doesn't it look like a decaying corpse or someone with the plague?
Finally, at the very end, a photo with movement.On the whole, the exhibit was a bit of a downer, and both Mi-Ran and Shin-Jeong denounced Sarah Moon as pessimistic (which I have come to understand is a pretty sizable insult here).
"It seemed like a dream. Back to my childhood, I had sad dreams. I dreamt that my mother said goodbye and left me alone." -Park Mi-Ran
Alone-ness seems to be a societal fear, here. Several of my co-workers (male and female) have expressed to me their desire to find a husband/wife so that they will never have to live by themselves. Most of my unmarried co-workers still live with their parents, and will likely continue to do so until they get married. This is a desirable situation to most of them. "I don't want to live alone," they say, and their earnestness is tangible.
"It seemed like a dream. Back to my childhood, I had sad dreams. I dreamt that my mother said goodbye and left me alone." -Park Mi-Ran
Alone-ness seems to be a societal fear, here. Several of my co-workers (male and female) have expressed to me their desire to find a husband/wife so that they will never have to live by themselves. Most of my unmarried co-workers still live with their parents, and will likely continue to do so until they get married. This is a desirable situation to most of them. "I don't want to live alone," they say, and their earnestness is tangible.
2 comments:
I love learning little things about Korean culture through snippets of your life there. I wonder, what is the normal age for marrying there? Chinese people also often live with their parents until marriage, and when I was there I heard that marrying past 25 was considered late.
According to one of my co-teachers, normal marrying age is 26-28 here (but it's not terribly unusual to marry a little earlier than that). When you hit 30, it's considered late, esp. for a woman.
The co-teacher that told me this wanted to go to the U.S. to get her master's, but decided not to because she is 26 now and if she left for the U.S. soon she wouldn't be able to find a Korean boyfriend to marry before she turned 28.
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