Time for Being Together: Toward Dialogue and Dignity

Sunmin Lee (artist)

A heroine set for a treasure hunt, the struggle of the heroines trying to convince themselves a happy ending, good and bad people, combat, crossroads and critical decisions, fire-breathing dragon… these elements are repeated and passed on over and over by numerous great artists through their work, and old tales.

The exhibition “Translocating Women” is about women who left their homeland and ended up in a strange city. With the backdrop of Taepyungdong, Seongnam city, the story that unfold is about the hopes and daily lives of these women who ventured to cross a continent, from a small land called Cambodia to another small land called Korea.

It was a strange choice for me indeed to follow the journey of those who crossed the continent, since I have never left Korea, my permanent residence for forty-six years. Just like that, somewhat out of the blue, I started the project with women who had settled in Taepyungdong, Seongnam city, Korea through international marriage. This was a change for me to the subjects of migration and diaspora, a move away from thirteen years of taking portraits of families and women.

Its beginning also was unexpected. I remember I was finishing up the project entitled “Twins,” which took seven years. I was preparing a solo exhibition for that and wondering what would be next. It was a Sunday in March 2003. I was praying to ask what I should do next; then I heard a clear voice answer that I should do a project on migrant women. Why me? I cannot do such a subject… That was my first response in surprise. At the time, I did think the stories of such women had nothing to do with me. I thought that way not only because I had worked on family issues and women's issues in the past but also because I had been influenced by shocking reports—like that of a young Vietnamese bride, Huang-mai, who was killed by her violent Korean husband within a month of their marriage—as well as by the one-sided broadcasting programs portraying such marriages as the best thing that can happen to the women because it allows them to come to Korea.

However, the impact from the message lingered in my head. The only thing that I managed to do was to try to find reasons I should work on such a topic through researching articles, TV programs, and books on the subject. After a full year, a magazine asked me to write a feature article on multiculturalism for its first issue. I did not even have one picture then. But I was able to convince myself that I was ready and that it was time to transform the knowledge and my thoughts accumulated the last twelve months into a photography series. So I accepted their offer.

May 2, 2012. I had never walked around the streets of Taepyungdong in Seongnam city, even though I had lived in Bundang in Seongnam city for ten years. I remember my shortened breath and the beads of sweat on my forehead while walking the steep hills of Taepyungdong for the first time. The narrow alleys were as unfamiliar as the steep hills contrasting with such a blue sky, where electric wires were creating labyrinths. All were making me feel embarrassed and estranged. It is just three bus stops between Taepyungdong and Bundang, where I live. Although they belong to the same city, I might have drawn a line in my mind between these two districts, Taepyungdong and Bundang. After first crossing that psychological border and sketching the area, I barely managed to bring my exhausted body home to bed.

May 12, 2012, ten days later. Did the first shoot with Hoang, who is currently twenty-three years of age and a Taepyungdong resident for nine months since immigrating from Cambodia. Still I was not able to sympathize with the dangers that she must have risked. Long way to go. Like many other photographers, I also made the mistake of focusing on visual elements such as the steep hills and narrow alleys, her simple belongings and pregnant body and dark skin. I realized that I was not empathetically listening to her stories about the reality of immigrant life and the background about the brokerage of international marriage. The display of vigilance against the sudden appearance of this native resident with a camera was also so strong that I was repudiated many times, even though I had been a portrait photographer for the last ten years. I barely made the number of photos for the magazine article and spent another year thinking this subject was over my head.

September 2012. I was offered a solo exhibition that I had not planned.

December 2012. I decided to organize the exhibition on the topic of migrant women and related stories. I titled it “Translocating Women.”

March 2013. After confirmation of the exhibition and many twists and turns to finalize the plans for it, I met Hoang again. She was the only woman who answered this strange photographer with a welcoming smile last time. The baby she was pregnant with last year was now about to have its first birthday. She introduced me to her Cambodian friends, Kunlip and Sarang. We spent a long, awkward hour waiting to break the ice, and then I took out my camera while sharing food and tea; taking trips to weekend farms; preparing radishes; and having Samgyeopsal together. It was a turning point for me, because I used to start clicking the camera shutter over and over as soon as I visited and greeted a family on a holiday during a photo shoot that would last over three days. Now I started to see the others not from the perspective of a photographer, Lee Sunmin, but as a person looking at their daily lives with respect while exercising caution and reserve.

May 30, 2013. Finally took the photograph of Hoang, Kunlip, and Sarang grocery shopping with their babies in her arms, against the backdrop of Seongnam Central Market. It was the starting point of my second journey of photographing the series. At the market, they introduced me to another family of immigrant woman. The family of Naratzu, her husband and mother-in-law, willingly allowed me to take photographs of them. Afterward, I spent long hours of the hot, steamy summer of 2013 at Taepyungdong. During this time, I got the chance to go to airport at 4 a.m. to pick up Hoang's sister, Haeang, who came to Korea after getting married; to take care of her baby on her moving day; to eat Zajangmyeon with them. We must have started feeling connected to each other then.

July 26, 2013. I visited Hoang early in the morning, thinking that I would take photographs of her moving and take care of her one-year-old baby. It was not even 10 a.m., but her luggage was completely loaded in the two-ton truck in the alley. There wasn't much to move. Then I noticed Hoang's face was pale, and she told me that she was not feeling well. I was not able to think straight because the subject of the photographs was sick. I had brought memory cards and hired an assistant. I ended up taking a photograph of her holding the handle of a stroller, then giving up shooting and sending the assistant back home. And I took Hoang's baby, Minchan, in my arms not as a photographer but as a mother who walked with my baby in a stroller fifteen years ago. Recalling such memories, I walked around the streets and hills of Taepyungdong for a couple of hours, the same as the first day of the project. It was a hot summer day, but the shade was cool enough for me to avoid the heat and was friendly and quiet, like the streets of Suyudong, where I grew up. It was also the last day of the project, “Translocating Women.”

October 16, 2013. Hoang, Kunlip, and Sarang visited me with their babies in Bundang for the first time. Having meals, drinking tea, eating ice cream, chatting in Cambodian with each other, shrieking with laughter while looking at photographs of themselves…there was no doubt they were like teenagers. In the evening, an old lady at the cleaners could not hide her surprise when she saw three Southeast Asian ladies and a baby walking out of my house and showed her curiosity. The lady might need time, though just a little, to get used to their presence in her daily life. She, as another mother, also shared the feeling of connectedness when she held a baby and took care of it. Even without actual experience, I believe we all have the will deep in our hearts, as is implied in the word “motherhood,” to give care, communication, interest, and love.

Maybe what matters in such relationships, from which we used to turn away with the excuse of difference, is the essential amount of time to build a tie and endurance to cope with the awkwardness of the process and become friends. In the age of migration, in which national borders get blurred and countless people pass through ports and airports every day, we can open up the possibility to secure dignity and communication out of obscurity, from stereotypes we set aside only when we secure a network of intimate relationships.

This was how I had accompanied their journey in the last three years, having flashbacks of the old stories that I had heard when I was young and recognizing strands of events similar to my life in their daily lives. Then and not until then, I finally was able to walk with them with comfort. It is not enough, as it may sound, but I honestly confess the journey was up to this point. After experiencing the remoteness that I once felt because of the unusual situation and because of the differences between us, I put down my camera and the waited for the time for us to be together instead of the time to click the shutter. I will not forget for a long time this moment when I unexpectedly felt a longing for motherhood that I hadn't reconciled yet and when these women and I finally made a connection. If my works on women and families in the past can be defined as questioning the meaning of femininity and families, this project represents the process that made me find the way back to healthy motherly love through the images of migrant women holding their children. I was able to start hoping for a new story for the women and myself. Just as I was able to reconcile with the trauma from my youth through the meetings with these women whom I had once thought distant, I hope the migrant women who willingly posed for the project found this process pleasant and will remember. I also hope this “Translocating Women” project is understood and echoed as a small gesture of a photographer who tries to empathize and communicate despite differences.

Extending gratitude from my heart to Hoang, Kunlip, Sarang, Saman, Minier, Kamtu, Naratzu, and Hyunjung Kim for overcoming strangeness, stereotypes, and memories of their wounds, and for their willingness to take part in the journey of a photographer. I also thank all the people who supported me through their care and prayers; artist/critic Young Min Moon for timely advice with sharp insights and sincere writings; my family, Ingu, Seongwoo, and Jayoon, who always bring me endless cheer and encouragement; picture-book artist Hera Jee, who navigated whenever I got lost; artist/critic Bonglim Choi, who added insights and wisdom on the process of printing; artist Bonchang Koo, who inspired me to start a new project; artist Jinyoung Park, who helped me with so many aspects of mounting the exhibition; Lux Gallery director Hyein Shim, who offered me the exhibition space; artist Jungmee Yoon, who made me realize the importance of the statement; artist Jaegu Kang, who helped me with printing; Jinsu Choi, the head of D'works, who designed the catalogue; special thanks to senior designer Chang Jae Lee and assistant managing editor Leslie Kriesel of Columbia University Press, who read and edited my artist statement as well as professor Young Min Moon's essay; and sponsors including Canon Korea and SFAC. Most of all, I return thanks and honor to God for opening up the way to these encounters.