1. New Generation: Communicating Through Photography

“New Generation: CAU Photography” is an exhibition introducing the works of photographers, who are also graduates from CAU. New generation implies not only the people living in the 21^st century, but also those who face new paradigms for communication, in the form of images that are easily expressed by photographs. CAU is proud to present the works of 10 photographers that have been already showcased around the world (in 11 countries) over the past five years, including Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Russia, Italy, and China. They try to portray contemporary concerns or problems that we all have in mind and further communicate with the audience through photographs. There is nothing like seeing for yourself. Let’s take a look at how each photo effectively unravels the messages on behalf of multiple of words.

2. Messages to Look at

A. People in the City

a. Ants – Youngdon Jung

The photographer’s perspective starts up high above. People walk by their own looks and pace of steps, repeating their movements. In a big scale, like seeing the entire forest, the crowd simply gathers and scatters. However, if we take a closer look, like focusing on each tree, individuals radiate different images. Their movements cannot be contoured in a certain form, like a flow of rhythm. Only the flash of photo can barely grasp their constantly changing movement.  

b. Some Days and Some Words - Chankyu Kim

For about a month, the photographer collected personal stories from residents living in the North part of Seoul by conducting an in-depth survey. Based on their experiences at places where they live, he recreated the story into pieces of photos with installations and sounds as supplementary effect. The whole process involved three different kinds of interaction between the city residents, the photographer himself, and the audience.

B. Unique Camerawork

a. Green Time - Jaeyeon Kim

Plants are less generous to photographers than you might have thought. When you see plants and just walk away thinking that you will have another chance to take a picture of it anyway, then you are wrong. You will never get the same one however much you try. Though humans and plants seem to share the same time zone, plants live by their own speed of time, emerging and disappearing accordingly. In an effort to capture the time of plants, named as “green time”, the photographer had gone through the shooting process five times and overlapped each of them, with a 20-minutes term given before the next shooting. Let the wind blow, clouds float, and the sun fall as these are all part of green time.

b. The Darkside - Jihyun Jung

The Darkside was photographed on Baengnyeongdo Island, where it is not open to the public because it is adjacent to North Korea. There remains debris of military installations, which have not been used since the ceasefire of the Korean War. Therefore, it is quite ironic that these military facilities symbolize not only the confrontation state of two nations but also provisional peace for the past 60 years. The photos were projected on the installations, not only once, but twice at the same location. Then the two images were put together, while the second one had the military installations artificially removed by Photoshop, making it harder to actually spot them.

The Demolition Site- Jihyun Jung

The people who had lived in now torn down buildings would be surprised to hear how this photograph was taken. The photographer sneaked into buildings that were doomed to be demolished and painted inside in red. After the building was pulled down and the red rooms were nothing but wrecked concrete pieces, the photographer went to the site inside once again with a camera. The pictures capture not only the remains but also how our living space in the city is helplessly destroyed by the name of redevelopment.   .  

C. Beyond Reality

a. No Exit - Ahn Jeongjin

No Exit consists of a flat image and a figure in the form of a sphere. The sphere represents a coded work of turning a two-dimensional image to a three-dimensional object, by reflecting the whole view on the surface. The photographer further hopes that people will not only stop from here, but also move on to the next stage by expanding the physical world into another level, breaking free from the limit that the photo has to face.

b. Nowhere - Youngjin Yoo

Although the space around us seems to be designated by ownership and an invisible line is marked for personal use, this is not always true. Spaces are continuously shared by different people and public spaces are the best places to explain the concept. The photograph takes in lights, shadows, and colors that change momentarily. It is not a snapshot, but a continuous image. All the factors that we can sense are put together, creating a place where we can feel it but cannot reach it. That is how Nowhere appears.

Due to the wide-spread use of smart phones, photography seems to have brought down the barriers to professionalization and has become a common part of our daily lives. It is now widely used as a useful and easy tool to express our lives, regardless of differences in language and culture. Thanks to this phenomenon, photography has become a more effective means through which to communicate with each other. As a matter of communication in this exhibition, the photographers have all fulfilled their jobs to deliver each of their meaningful messages. Which one brings real sense to you?

Period: 2017.10.16~2017.11.16

Location: Chung-Ang University, Building 310, 1^st Floor