From a young age, photographer Seok-Woo Song was taught the Korean mindset—the belief that “hard work pays off,” that individual sacrifice is worthwhile for the benefit of the whole—a mindset he has doubted since adulthood. He tells Marigold Warner about his series “Wandering, Wondering,” which uses body language and performance to explore the pressure to achieve, the intolerance towards those who decide to swim against the tide and the sense of loneliness that’s sweeping the nation’s youth as a result.
There is a common saying among students in South Korea: if you sleep for three hours a night you might get into a top university; if you sleep for four hours, you’d be lucky to get a place elsewhere. A rigorous culture of endurance hangs over the youth of Korea, where the ladder to respectable prospects—for education, work and marriage—is tough to climb and unbending in expectation.
Growing up in Seoul, Seok-Woo Song experienced these pressures first-hand. The belief that “hard work pays off” was ingrained into him, until he enlisted in Korea’s mandatory military service in 2013, aged 18. There is a five-week training program, he explains. Based on performance, trainees are assigned a unit. Most are placed near their hometowns, but Song ended up in Daegu, a city with a unique dialect in the southeast of Korea. “I was discriminated against because of my accent and cultural differences,” he says. “Because of that, I became disillusioned by the concept of serving a social system … It made me question this idea of individual sacrifice to fulfill societal roles.”
This experience became the starting point for “Wandering, Wondering,” an ongoing project using body language and performance to explore “social principles, and how people interact.” Groups of men, uniformed and faceless, are pictured in formations against dramatic natural and built landscapes. The distance between the viewer and subject is key: far enough to feel alienating, but close enough to recognize their individual presence. Despite being dwarfed by the magnitude of their surroundings, the eye is almost always drawn to the characters, a nod to Song’s belief in the importance of every individual in Korea despite the societal expectations placed on each of them.
The photographic process is broadly divided into three parts. The first is casting: “Recruiting people is the most important part,” says Song. “I conduct face-to-face interviews and select people based on their personal experience of navigating society.” The second step is location scouting. Song drives through the outskirts of cities across Korea, pinpointing interesting settings and sketching from viewpoints that will later inform his compositions. The final part is making the picture, a slow and meticulous process achieved with a 4x5 large format film camera.
Song’s images are striking, but also quietly political. In one image taken in a logistics center in Ansan, a city just south of Seoul, for example, the text on the LCD screen reads “reverse parking prohibited,” a comment on society’s intolerance towards those who decide to swim against the tide. Another image, taken on an uninhabited island off the west coast of Korea, shows four men standing with a piece of cloth pulled taut on their heads—an act of solidarity, but also survival.
These experiments with body language evoke contrasting feelings—a tug-and-pull between isolation and unity, loneliness and codependency—commenting on the discordant experience of being young in Korea. The wordplay in the project title, “Wandering, Wondering,” intends to evoke that experience, too. As a collection, these images not only demonstrate Song’s proficiency as a photographer—in his meticulous approach to arrangement, scale and lighting—but also as a conceptual artist commenting on social issues through the lens of fine art.
Song has always been artistic, and first got into photography as a reference for his drawings. As a child, his mother regularly took him to the countryside and took photographs for him to draw from. Over time, he became more interested in the camera. Now, he practices as an artist while lecturing on photography at various universities around the country. “My parents always actively supported what I wanted to do,” he says. Others aren’t so lucky; many Korean families expect their children to pursue conventional professions. “Modern Korean society is a performance-focused society,” Song explains. “You have to study and work hard. Generally, people just want to work at a company and make a stable income.”
Half of Korea’s population live alone, and endure some of the longest working hours in the world, and according to CNN, there is an epidemic of loneliness among young people. With that in mind, Song's work not only reflects his personal experience, but also serves as a broader commentary on the condition of youth. “I hope viewers can empathize with the work, while reflecting on their own past or future,” he says. Ultimately, his art encourages a hopeful introspection, reminding us that amid the pressures, there is room for empathy and growth.