A new book titled “Korean Society and Women Photographers” has been published, which links the work of 16 contemporary Korean female photographers with key social issues in Korea.

Written by Lee Phil, a professor at Hongik University, “Korean Society and Women Photographers” introduces the work of female photographers such as Park Youngsook, Oksun Kim, Jungjin Lee, Nikki S. Lee, JeongMee Yoon, Eunju Kim, Sunmin Lee, Anna Lim, Sookang Kim, Nanda, Chang Jia, Shin Eunkyung, Jun Ahn, Ko Hyun Joo, Seong Yeun Koo, and Jinyoung Yoon. These photographers have documented and recorded Korean society through the realistic visual language of photography.

The author provides a social context for the seemingly fragmented and individual works of these photographers, establishing an aesthetic framework and enhancing the reader's understanding with rich photography.

Since the 1980s, Korean female photographers have actively used photography to examine and express the present state of Korean society. Their photographs reflect various aspects of Korean history, post-colonialism, migration, the pluralization and hybridity of Korean society, philosophical reflections on everyday objects, strange imaginations and desires, gendered spaces in our lives, and the realities of Korean women across generations.

However, there has not been a work that reads their work from both an aesthetic and critical perspective, as well as from a sociological and humanistic context. The author examines the modern and contemporary issues of Korean society that are embedded in the works of female photographers and integrates them into contemporary Korean art and the humanistic and sociological discourses of today.

To do this, the author weaves these works into stories focused on themes such as history, migration, objects, space, bodies, and the other. These terms are central not only to contemporary art but also to broader humanistic and sociological thought.

In conjunction with the book's release, an archive exhibition titled 《HerStories》 is being held at Gallery INDEX until March 31. The exhibition is open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and a book concert is scheduled for 2 p.m. on March 29.

References

• 눈빛출판사, [사진집] 한국사회와 여성사진가

Ji Yeon Lee has been working as an editor for the media art and culture channel AliceOn since 2021 and worked as an exhibition coordinator at samuso (now Space for Contemporary Art) from 2021 to 2023.