Sung Jin Park’s Kid Echo Captures the Rebellious Spirit of Youth in 2000s Seoul
In a new book of unseen photographs, Park looks back at the teenagers who caught his eye for their singular style and refusal to conform.
Growing up in Seoul, South Korea in the 1980s, the photographer Sung Jin Park first came to picture-making by way of rock album covers. “They were particularly interesting at that time, and they were perhaps my first casual encounter with photography,” the artist tells W. He didn’t get behind the camera himself until he was a 17-year-old student at Pratt University in New York, where he frequented museums to take in the work of Walker Evans, Paul Strand, and Diane Arbus. “I never really had artistic heroes in particular. I was more interested in certain photos or photo books from some of these photographers,” Park adds. “Bruce Davidson’s Brooklyn Gangs and Diane Arbus’s Aperture monograph were some of my favorites in my early years. Tokyo Lucky Hole by Nobuyoshi Araki was a very impressive one, as well.”
Decades later, Park is releasing Kid Echo, a new monograph published by independent photo book publisher Session Press, run by Miwa Susuda, that he will celebrate with a signing at Dashwood Books in New York City on November 5 (for those in Paris, Park will sign Kid Echo November 14 from 5-6 PM at the Le Plac’Art Photo booth at Paris Photo). Kid Echo compiles 69 unseen images Park shot from 2001-2009 in and around the outskirts of Seoul. It’s all work that was in some way too controversial to make it into his first monograph, the now-seminal portrayal of South Korean youth titled Kid Nostalgia, released in 2014. “When I made the first book, Kid Nostalgia, I saved many photos I liked. Publishing Kid Nostalgia in Seoul at that time was not easy, and 2014 was not the right time to show everything,” Park says. “I believed I would have an opportunity to show them sometime in the future.”
The new book was curated from hundreds of images that did not make it into the earlier monograph. They show 2000s Seoul teenagers skipping school and looking the camera dead in the eye, many with open-mouthed vulnerability, a cigarette drooping, or a cheeky grin. Quite a few cut their hair themselves. Most are in their school uniforms, yet still express non-conformity. Park spent years searching the outskirts of Seoul for the right subjects, students who embodied a certain rebellion, rawness or subculture of the time.
“Attitude and style were some of the elements that caught my eye, but I feel I was portraying myself through these teens,” Park explains. “There had to be some kind of spark. Some kids really have it in them—that special something comes alive in front of the camera. It is truly a magical moment when you see it. Especially the eyes.”
The photos in Kid Echo are portrait-style, shot in the streets, but composed. “Finding the characters and getting to photograph them are two different things. In a short amount of time, I had to develop some kind of connection with my subject. I have developed my own know-how for dealing with this. I can’t remember how many days went by without successful castings or shoots,” says Park. “Finding that dance partner was never easy, but that was just part of the game. Once things get too easy or too predictable, I think it is time to move on. The kids were changing, I was changing, and everything was changing in that 10 years.”
