http://www.jeongmeeyoon.com/aw_zoo.htm
Zoo series
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Part 1:
Through photographing animals and enclosures in zoos I try to compare the social structure and classification of zoos to those of human's in this dreary society. Animals in zoos are rather surviving while they have forgotten their own animal instinct because they are kept in this apparatus which human devised for the educational purpose like botanical gardens, art museums, natural history museum, and libraries. Though men created various customs, institutions and ideologies for their ideal lives, it is ourselves that are restricted from the system we create. I see contemporaries who are under the fine network of state's subtle surveillance system adjusting themselves without notice when I watch these wild animals used-to-be. Now they are the animals that lost their animal instinct, animals have no control over their own lives, and animals living in the environment without knowing if they are in the real nature or in an artificial environment.
PART 2:
People made values, rules, systems, ideologies and so on, in order to live comfortably and to reach an ideal world. But those things restrained us from freely living, and aroused the excluding. Unfortunately they were increasingly aggravating the alienation. Many people are supposed to have experienced the inconsistent and unreasonable situations in the world. The animals in the Zoo are in the same conditions as us. They need to live a natural and unreserved life in nature. But we put them behind the bars, so that they lose their inherent haracters. I didn`t supposed they lived a true life. Just on that point I started the series of the zoological photos. In my early works, I revolved on the simple idea, but more I took the At last, I asked myself anew what on earth the Zoo is.
This question had me think about what the Zoo presented and hid, that is to say issues of visibility and invisibility. We can see the animals and confirm their names to which we are accustomed in the photos of illustrations of the fairly tails. At the Zoo, we recognize the similarity between the human and animals of discover the differences between them and us. And sometimes, we have a sense of our own superiority to them, even so being ignorant of it. The Zoo is like those of the House of trees and plants, Museums, galleries, Libraries and so forth at the role and the function. All of them belong to the institutions of reproducing the fixed ideologies of the established societies.
In the Zoo, some animals are locked in the cage and lose their inherence, others are under the care, because they are injured. All of them don`t have the power to change their situations, so that they are thrown in back of the bars and remains in the artificial space of the Zoo. And besides they don`t know that the artificial space of the Zoo is the fake circumstances. They remind me of the contemporaries who uncritically accept the present systems
and are increasingly insensible to the simulative life.
And I observed the mechanism that the spatial disposition of the Zoo arouses. The history of the Zoo says only sight could dominate and control the placement of the cages. By the way I recognize that the placement of the cages in the Zoo is homologous to that of the prison. This relation is closely associated with our society, Being blind to the fact that we are under the control of something or someone.
To embossing such ideas in the photos of the Zoo, I have tried to demonstrate the deserted Zoo and the wounded animals. I have maximized the artificial empty space of the cage or closed up the hurt animals, which remind me of the staggering contemporaries.
REVIEW: (see bold for influential ideas)
JeongMee Yoon's black and white photos have our gazes wandering somewhere in-between animals and their habitats which is zoo. The state of wandering is generally perceived as a psychological reaction to a certain kind of deficiency or absence. Different from ordinary zoos with extravaganzas of curious people in festive mood and cute tricks of animals, the zoo in Yoon's photos suggests such dreadful scenes as an empty cage shown through the iron bars, a cement floor soaked with animal blood, and some animals barely resting on the corner, which evokes dreary yet hollow sentiment.
The space called zoo suddenly struck as a representation of wearisome and eeriness. At the same time, the zoo as a tangible space to store animals begins to draw more attention than the animals themselves. Animals in the photos provoke a feeling of sadness and isolation rather than that of affection or intimacy; the photos of an elephant with one ivory broken, an one-eyed owl, a gorilla leaning head on the window, and stuffed animals with kitsch paintings on the background. The images in Yoon's photos have certain remoteness from what we generally believe about zoo and animals. You may find your naive belief become fractured and finally break down in pieces. Indeed, all the images tend to open up our stereotypical perception and teach us how to look at them in different perspectives by making a hole or crack onto our firm believes. Rather strange and even surreal images of the zoo give us a chill: Gazing into it for a moment, you might find it reminiscent of an empty stage or a cell in jail. Considering zoo as a specimen room of living creatures, doesn't it indeed explicate the human history of imprudent killing over animals and of constant subjugation and captivity? What Jeongmee Yoon ultimately attempts to suggest in the series of zoo photos would be the multi-faceted aspects of a space called zoo.
What really is the zoo for? Yoon's photo starts from this question. Her photos may seem like a critical view or a comment on zoo. Why have people created zoos at the first place? What are the functions, structures and the spatial layouts of the zoo like? It must hold strong similarity to fundamentals of human society, such as authority systems, isolations and controls, discriminations and exclusions, and captivities and disciplines. What do we actually expect from zoo? This question is not only applicable to a particular place like zoo, but the same yet very complex question can also be valid for our lives the origins and fundamentals of our so-called modern life. Also, it leads us to a somewhat self-reflective and existential state. What is human and what is animal? Is there a clear distinction between the two? Aren't we also a fragile creature raised and disciplined to be suitable for the human society? Then, would that be rational person or what? Would that be just a matter of social system? Is there anyone completely free from systems or institutions? I suddenly realized that I have gotten obsessed with different questions evoked while looking at Yoon's photos. This kind of obsession can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. But each time we see images, we ended up facing with complex yet inevitable questions.
As for small kids, zoo can be a place full of fun and excitement. In the past, school excursions or children's day used to be the rare occasions to visit zoo. We had so much fun watching animals back then.
Why do we relate zoos with festivals or special events? Human-beings indeed have long history of celebrating rituals in conjunction with shooting and hunting. It certainly has something to do with animals: People circled around the hunted animals and enjoyed dancing, and they even made stone inscriptions with animal images wishing for further luck in hunting. They say that the Chinese character beauty took the image from a lamb offered in sacrifice, which reflects nomadic culture and life where lamb had been the most important food source. Since then, human have learned to fight with animals and cultivate them in order to establish and maintain their own society and culture. With beginning of modern society, human science and technology facilitated the precise capture and butchery of animals. Furthermore, people categorized animals in coherent order for thorough control and management, which resulted in pictorial books, encyclopedia, specimen collections, and biology studies. And the zoo is the essential representation of all the history between human and animals. The zoos are the outcome of modern age. The underlying purpose of zoo and the time of its establishment coincide with other institutions as museums, libraries, and botanical gardens. The emergence of modern capitalism in 19th century and accordingly emerged notion of weekends triggered the birth of zoo an artificial, manipulated and fabricated nature. Zoo shows bloody evidence of human-beings desire to dominate nature and pursue for colonialism as they accumulated wealth and became more materialistic. The engaged animals, barely continuing their pathetic lives, became an object of delight for human-beings. Now, the animals deprived of their instincts, memories about nature, and their origins exist before us as a piece of specimen or as a representative of each species.
JeongMee Yoon has always focused on specific structures or sites taken them as a subject of her works, and her concerns about zoo lies on the extension. It seems like there is not so much difference between spatial structure of a zoo and the human residences. Yoon gradually became paid more attention and time on the subject zoo and produced a series of photos regarding it.
The zoo located next to an amusement park or a museum is a place fully sacrificed itself for the purpose of entertaining human-beings. It appears to be an ideal place where human and nature co-exists in peace, but deep inside, there lurks a history of power and control, invasion and plunder. There exists a certain distance between the caged animals and myself. The distance marked by the iron bars of the cage makes me feel secured and feel overwhelmed with superiority to those encaged creatures. Some kids would throw their snacks or small stones with innocent laughs. What a great place to realize how advanced we are as supreme creatures!
Wasn't it that the idea of human supremacy and controls and possessions in the name of justice has always been the essential principle of Western countries and their Christian perspective? What Westerners have believed (liberating human beings from nature through the development of technology and science) became the fundamentals of modernization and our modern life. However, it also triggered the beginning of the devastation of all living creature, including nature and human-beings. Zoo reflects this bitter reality in helpless manner. Yoon's photos are also on the extension of unveiling the underlying meaning of zoo; her black and white photos contain the long history of human beings and animals. How could it be possible for the photo to unveil a fragment of the dark history, which is hardly exposed on the surface?
- Park, Young-Taek (Art critic, Prof. at Kyung-gi Univ.)
BIO:
1969 Born in Seoul, South Korea
Education
2006 Graduated from Department of Photography, Video and related Media, School of Visual Arts(M.F.A.), NY, USA
1999 Graduated from Department of Photographic Design, Hong-Ik Univ. (M.F.A), South Korea
1992 Graduated from Department of Painting, College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University (B.F.A), South Korea
Residency Program 2008-2009 Changdong Studio Program, Seoul, South Korea
2006 International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, USA
2002 Ssamzie Space Studio Program, Seoul, South Korea
Solo Exhibition
2009 The Pink & Blue Project (Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery, Beijing, China)
2009 The Pink & Blue Project (Bolinas Museum, CA, USA)
2009 The Pink & Blue Project (San Francisco International Airport Museum (SFO Airport Museum), SF, CA, USA)
2009 The Pink & Blue Project (Jenkins Johnson gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA)
2009 The Pink & Blue Project (EM Art Gallery, Seoul, South Korea)
2008 The Pink & Blue Project (Children's Museum of the Arts, NY, USA)
2008 The Pink & Blue Project (Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, USA)
2008 The Pink & Blue Project (La Caja Blanca Gallery, Spain)
2007 5th Daum Prize Solo Show - The Pink & Blue Project (Kumho Museum, Seoul, South Korea)
-Supported by Geonhi Art Foundation
2001 Natural History Museum (Gallery Boda, Seoul, South Korea)
-NokUmBangChoBunKiTaengChon Solo Invited Exhibition
2000 Zoo II (Time Photo Space, South Korea)
1999 Zoo (Gallery Boda, Seoul, South Korea)
Teaching
2008 Seoul National University, Seoul Institute of the Arts, Hongik University, South Korea
2007 Seoul National University, South Korea
1999-2004 Photography Department, Seoul National Univ. of Technology, Sungshin Univ.,
Sejong Univ. Hanyang Univ., Dongguk Univ., Kyungwon Univ. Semyung Univ., Korea
Jenkins Johnson Gallery, NY & San Fransisco
With pets, our homes, fenced in yards, vet offices, kennels, etc. have become places to store domesticated animals. The spaces and resources we devote to our pets can become most interesting aspect of the pet/animal relationship. They have been striped of nearly all instinct and are not encouraged to embrace the true animals that they are. Pet cats sit indoors, on window seals, powerless to change their situations, gazing outside at squirrels and birds, longing to stalk and chase after potential prey and be wild. Living in a world where humans have been stripped away from nature, perhaps pet keeping is, in a remote, odd, and subconscious way, a method to reconnect with nature, even if it is in a very controlled manner.
