Tell Them I Said Hello
Tell Them I Said Hello, portrays the identity issues among immigrants. Jinwoo Hwon Lee 이훤 shares his experience in form of poetic images.
Lee writes, “I was 19, when I came back by myself to America since being a toddler. I did not speak what everyone spoke. I knew no one. People in the small town noticed me by my color. Koreans born and raised in America thought I was too ‘Korean’. People back home thought I was too ‘American’. I was neither one of us nor one of them.
The eclectic black and white photographs in the series reflect the never resolved physical and emotional distance between two homes. The images hardly show a full face of a person. This signifies the scattered and undermined identity as a liminal. Oscillating between a citizen and an immigrant, I never felt fully understood or wholeheartedly considered. Some nuances were always dismissed.
In a greater context, the seemingly disjointed objects and people photographed in the series portray the alienated under different settings. The loose strings among the images are metaphors of many individuals’ firsthand testimonies. Joining this personal confession, viewers are invited to imagine their own version of alienation.”
Lee writes, “I was 19, when I came back by myself to America since being a toddler. I did not speak what everyone spoke. I knew no one. People in the small town noticed me by my color. Koreans born and raised in America thought I was too ‘Korean’. People back home thought I was too ‘American’. I was neither one of us nor one of them.
The eclectic black and white photographs in the series reflect the never resolved physical and emotional distance between two homes. The images hardly show a full face of a person. This signifies the scattered and undermined identity as a liminal. Oscillating between a citizen and an immigrant, I never felt fully understood or wholeheartedly considered. Some nuances were always dismissed.
In a greater context, the seemingly disjointed objects and people photographed in the series portray the alienated under different settings. The loose strings among the images are metaphors of many individuals’ firsthand testimonies. Joining this personal confession, viewers are invited to imagine their own version of alienation.”