Other Ways of Being
Sangyon Joo


“This book contains scenes from the past ten years, both from my internal and external world. As ascending spiral staircase, the views are never the same yet retain a certain repetitiveness. Descending from my pillar as a photographer and transitioning between various roles, I experienced new perspectives unfolding for things that were once familiar. There are diverse ways of being and one's life reveals a unique story. When an important value breaks, a new possibility is born. I believe the process is the means to discover and create by oneself.” _Sangyon Joo

For Sangyon Joo, photography is a tool for the thought process of looking and recognizing. External objects become an internal landscape reflecting the artist's senses and thoughts, and they are restructured according to her cognitive flow and associations. Through observing nature such as as land, sky, lakes, and trees, Joo practices various perspectives to reconnect with herself as a part of nature. The artist, having gained a new perspective on the act of seeing through an incident that nearly resulted in losing her eyesight, connects the blood vessels in her x-ray photos to tree branches or jusxtaposes them with other objects, thus intertwining the inner and outer landscapes. The specific places and subjects collected over the past decade encounter each other in memory, becoming abstract in the lights. Through the process of selecting, reconstructing, and editing the captured photos, this book stands as the result of another method of creating.

The accompanied text book, which tells an autobiographical story of thinking while looking at a tree, reflects the Joo’s sincere beliefs and attitude towards life and the medium of photography. This photobook contains 180 images structured to flow as a whole, and also holds the artist’s note edited in Korean and English.


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First Edition, 300 copies
2023
22.5 × 28.5 cm
176 pages
Exposed spine binding / Text book Pamphlet stitching / Dust jacket
ISBN 978-89-97605-79-8