Hye - Ryoung Min

"Hye-Ryoung Min is a South Korean photographer living and working in NYC.

Her work explores the intersection between human relations and the inner self. Whether she is observing the mundane lives of strangers on the street; the comings and goings of her neighbours as seen through the windows of her home; the fleeting expressions of her niece; the evolving landscape of a city or the more than seventy diaries, which she has kept over the past twenty-six years, Hye-Ryoung continues to find in different subjects a reflection of her deeper self."

http://hyeryoungmin.com/about

Personal Landscape I have been researching into photographers that have done a personal project based on landscapes. Hye-Ryoung has done a project called 'Personal Landscape'. The thing that drew me into her project wasn't actually the images it was the quote that's at the beginning of what the project is about.

"Can someone belong to the land, if she was born there or lived there for a good while? Is this determined by where the body exists or what the spirit relies on to subsist? Is what we see the same as what there is? Or is what we see what we believe is there? There is a landscape that my physical eyes cannot see but my mind can discern. It doesn’t exist and yet it is always there."

I really connected with this quote and I couldn't work out why so I sat down and started to really think about it. I decided to pick the quote apart and work out why I connected with certain parts of it.

“Can someone belong to the land, if she was born there or lived there for a good while?” - I understand this to link to myself in the way of the land being the moors not the land we live on. If I was to understand it in the way of the land meaning the land we all live on then I have mixed feelings about whether I would belong to the land. Inn one way I believe of course I belong to the land because I was created here but on the other hand I don’t because there is so much of the land that I haven’t explored that I only belong to a small proportion of the land. However, because I understand it to mean the land around where I live and where I grew up, the moors, then yes I feel I belong to that land because it’s where I’ve grown up and known for a long time. I know the places around the area.

“Is this determined by where the body exists or what the spirit lies on to subsist?” supports this because I believe it’s determined by where the body exists or has existed in the past.

“Is what we see the same as what there is? Or is what we see what we believe is there?” I feel like we could imagine certain things but I think if we did imagine things then they would be based on what was there already. I think that hearing myths about the places nearby are factors that help towards imagining things. I’ve definitely imagined things based on myths I’ve been told about the places near to where I live.

“There is a landscape that my physical eyes cannot see but my mind can discern. It doesn’t exist and yet is always there.”

Do we always imagine the land around us? Do others see the land in the same way as us? Do we actually belong anywhere?

What is Personal Landscape about?

Hye-Ryoung moved from Seoul to New York which she had always wanted to do because she had always wanted to move away from her hometown. She very often looked up expecting to see the mountains of her hometown but instead saw the skyscrapers of Manhattan. This made her believe that she belonged in her native country, she found herself wanting to go back to the place she had always wanted escape from. When she did return to Seoul it took her longer to readjust to the city and find her bearings so she began wanting to find comfort in her bed, desk and the streets where she could walk with her eyes closed. She realised that Seoul had been pushing her away to a region where she would be called a stranger. The similarity and unfamiliarity of both of the places had started to combine for Hye-Ryoung and had started to balance each other out.

In the series, Personal Landscape Hye-Ryoung has created her own city which she has called a 'third city' that exists only to her. She takes parts of the two cities and reassembles to make personal cityscapes.

"For the past three years I photographed views of New York City and Seoul, establishing two parallel archives each without committing to a finalized vision for a digital composite. Among the photographs, I chose the images, which would function as main images or stages for the work. I would then question these images repeatedly until I understood that something about them could be shifted or altered with an additional element, sometimes several elements, or a large building block taken from an image from the other city. In some cases, I decided to combine photographs, which have similarities to each other. For instance, the Highline in NY and Cheonggyecheon in Seoul both have elevated rails and used to have an elevated highway running through them.  Also, there are old warehouse buildings and small mills in their surroundings. Sometimes I altered the part, which I “missed” and wished I could find in the other city. For example, I might substitute the typical NY brick wall with the shabby wall where I used to play and walk by everyday and night of my childhood; or perhaps switch the windows from which I observe different scenes of city life. Also, quite often the new landscapes were made by intuition. At a technical level, all composites require that I carefully calibrate elements such as colour temperature, perspective or shadows to make the photographs look seamless, just as if they existed in another city somewhere."

Before researching into Hye-Ryoung I just assumed these images were taken in New York but parts of buildings that nobody saw or took any notice of. I didn't realise they were two images put together. Now I have researched into Hye-Ryoung I feel a real connection with her images even though I haven't experienced what she has.