Bye, specificity_curated by Jung Hyosup
In fact, the people in her photography do not seem very special to give an impression that they are having special ‘everyday’ lives. “letter to Nim(you)” which recorded the artist’s life of an year, “SAIESEO: between two Koreas and Japan” which is portrait works of some families, and “sweet Time” which continuously photographed ‘our school’, the everyday life of the people she photographed are literally having ‘everyday’ lives.
Artist Kim In Sook is the third generation Zainichi Korean. Zainichi Korean means South Koreans or North Koreans living in Japan, and they had to go through a number of discriminations and ironies in the time of the chaos. She began questioning to the questions that she received from people around her if she was South Korean, or North Korean, or Japanese, the social standard issue has reached even to her life. She could not answer clearly who she was, or what she was, and began sensing that she is in between that did not satisfy any of the original parts. It was photography for her that helped her clarifying her identity from being categorized in the obscure between.
Artist Kim In Sook has been unique; she does not focus to the gaps or differences that she had like how most of documentaries focus, instead, she chose to stay still and looked around the people near her. That should be the reason why her special scenes turned out very ordinary. If she worked on “letter to Nim(you)” to answer the identity questions for herself, after then, “SAIESEO: between two Koreas and Japan” is based on photographs and moving images from her meeting and talking to the people experiences who were in the similar situation as her. Through the characters in the images, the ambiguous elements of Korea and Japan could be found, but before then, they were simply human beings and families. As artist Kim In Sook brings out their ordinary lives, the invisible boundaries disappear and the between area becomes just the same as the main areas. Also, when looking at “sweet Time” that has purely contained the ‘our school’ (the Chosun school in Japan)’s children’s lives, laughs, and happy times, the unnecessary prejudices and standards disappear.
Recently, the artist began trying to overcome herself who had been defined as a person in between. What she focused for “Continuous Way” was that there is not so much differences between the life of Koreans and of Japanese, and this work was to talk about her sweet time at ‘school’. This work bases on an elementary school in Seoul; in the artwork “SAIESEO: between two Koreas and Japan” the ‘school’ becomes a shared place of cool memory for adults and of learning new for children. From photographs and moving images to installations and performances, through the hand prints on the school desks and the sweet memories from them, the artist erases boundaries between Koreans and Japanese and furthermore, between anyone.
The reason why artist Kim In Sook seems ordinary is probably not only because she is similar to them; her point of view is filled with warmth and humbleness, and her heart has the mind to bring everyone together regardless of boundaries. This exhibition is the place for sharing her point of view, and to meet her not as a person in between, but as one who lives a life with others together.
