National Photography Month: Jooeun Bae
Invert © Jooeun Bae
Written by Claire Ping
Inspired partly by her experience of living and studying in America as a foreigner, Jooeun Bae’s Colorful Scissors series is both the fruit of her fascination with collage and a thoughtful reflection on the creative energy of migrant life. This new group of 16 handcrafted pieces attempts to explain why the photographer uses collage as her primary medium of expression.
Bae, who has recently been named one of the winners of Helsinki Photo Festival 2021, traces her obsession with collage to her adolescence, when she became captured by the idea of creation through piecing together different fragments. Born in Jinju, South Korea, Bae later moved to the United States where she remained for over a decade. This period sparked “a sense of herself that harmonized Korean, her human nature, and the American culture.” For her, collage is a method that gives shape to her imagination. Through daily practice on collages while completing the series, Bae realizes that her choice of medium is mainly affected by three things: the experience of undergoing surgery indirectly and directly; an interest in Origami; and becoming aware of the powerful energy that is generated when diverse elements are brought into dialogue through life in a foreign country.
Choose the Colors © Jooeun Bae
Where Have I Been? © Jooeun Bae
Using the methods of collage, Bae visualizes her journey – both physical and psychological – in Where Have I Been? The picture depicts jigsaw pieces, resembling the maps of different states, pinned down in overlapping positions. An eye, an ear, a nose, and a lip are stuck to each of the pieces, while characters from different languages run inversely down the image. The resulting form almost appears like the profile of an odd-shaped face, perhaps suggesting someone who has been molded by and come to embody an unconventional mix of influences.
The remapping of facial features is also the subject of Different Lives but Same Thoughts, in which small cubes of various sizes are placed like Lego pieces against a pink background. Each square contains an image showing a fragment of the human face – eyes, lashes, earlobe, moles, and the corner of a slightly opened mouth. Viewers are left wondering if they are bits of the same person or, as the title may imply, meant to show striking connections between different individuals when one takes apart the familiar and given whole.
Different Lives but Same Thoughts © Jooeun Bae
Breathing New Life © Jooeun Bae
Bae’s practice is situated within a long lineage of using collage as an experimental art form to capture the fragmented realities of modern life and tap into the psychological realm since the twentieth century. Collage has been particularly attractive for photographers, not less so since the advent of digital technologies. A concern with process is ever more apparent in Breathing New Life, dominated by a blue-and-yellow scissor in the center. The acts of cutting and collaging seem to be given life in the image, with the blades and papers taking flight in a whirlwind of fluid shadows and crisscrossing lines.
Meanwhile, Bae’s works carry a personal voice and sensibility. Drawing from private memories and inner reflections, Colorful Scissors is both a statement on her language as an artist and an attempt at reclaiming the creative potential of hybrid cultural influences absorbed through life as a migrant – an experience that in itself recalls a collage of sorts.
