New York based photographer, Eui-Jip Hwang, looks at the construction of identity with his series 'Live Your Dream', next on our showcase.
Live Your Dream explores South Korea’s renewal of the Korean identity, which has been remolded by the mass production of cosmetics within its growing popular culture.By receiving facial contouring surgeries, colored contacts, and skin treatments and by applying face-whitening products, the society enables a person to come one step closer to the dream of a higher social status. It is an aspirational necessity for both the male and female youth. Nourished by a subconscious appreciation of Eurocentric beauty standards, the nation has created a multi-billion-dollar beauty industry since its rebirth following the devastating Korean War (1950-1953). The country’s reconstruction period, shaped by its admiration for “wealthy America,” put forth a view of Americanness as the symbol of wealth and class.
To supply this “better and richer” way of American life, Dr. Ralph Millard, an American plastic surgeon, contributed an innovative operation of double-eyelid surgery in the Korean Peninsula during the 1950’s. The benevolent Cold War aid, purporting to transform Korea’s identity, instead paved the way for the development of Western-influenced beauty ideals in today’s South Korea—a place now praised for being the plastic surgery capital of the world and the epicenter of Asian pop culture. In fact, a person does not fit into the modern profile of a Korean without an appearance-altering plastic surgery or the application of cosmetics.
By rejuvenating and recontextualizing the archives of found advertisements and photographs, Live Your Dream illustrates what this newly-modified Koreanness entails and what it means for its assimilation towards the dominant culture.
Eui-Jip Hwang (b. 1994, South Korea) is a visual artist who lives and works in New York City. Employing documentary and fictional narratives, Hwang creates a portrait of society by utilizing various methods of image making and appropriation. His usage of photography carries the visuals of advertising to re-examine the present image culture. In 2017, he received a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
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