“Re-Figure”
My photography explores the processes of memory and identity. In this series, I focus on fabric and clothing as subject matter; shrouded female figures are set in relation to varying environments.
Clothing itself conveys a slippery relationship between time and memory, and the public and private ways people inhabit it. This meditation entails challenging and important questions about representations of women, myself included. I feature myself in the frame, draped in fabrics harmonized with environments to examine and enact cultural camouflage.
This strategy stems from my experiences as a Korean residing in the US for the past seven years and investigating my responses to this relocation. I use my camera to examine how my portrayal as an anonymous figure both visually conforms to American surroundings, but also conveys displacement. I express my sense of estrangement, by not only shielding my features, but also functioning as a visual barrier that the viewer cannot penetrate.
© Mijoo Kim, 2019