I was born and raised in South Korea. Traveling has been a huge role in my life since I was young, which let me grow as a multiculturally influenced person. Going to places where I feel like a perfect stranger really encourages me to keep going on an adventure.
I also have been obsessed with my own extreme curiosity about the surrounding world, just like Charles Baudelaire said that a modernist must be the spiritual citizen of the universe with an intense curiosity and interest in the world, and further should observe particular beauty.
I always dreamed of living in the United States, considered the most powerful free democracy and global superpower on earth. For over 3 years while attending college in America, I spent my dedicated time and effort into wandering throughout the country and documenting the American daily life. As an astute observer with the attentive curiosity, what I explored and sought all over my great journey was not something like other ordinary travelers going on a sightseeing tour. Instead it was about the American themselves and their everyday life, with the goal to peer into the country in a more distinctive and unique way. Discovering and observing the incomparable attractiveness of America and its people like the patriotism, freedom, and religion influenced me than anything else.
I desire this project to be developed by visually investigating the genuine meaning of the United States from a stranger’s perspective, capturing the real Americanness in a candid and realistic way. I further want this photographic essay from my peculiar wanderings throughout the country to be encompassing the American culture, society, history, and constitution from a non-American’s lens. Everything about my photographs is open to interpretation and I want the viewers to make their own, which I ultimately aim to share my work with the rest of the world as a way of visual communication
