Photographic Love Letter to Flushing’s Korean Group
The scent of sulfuric waste would start to emerge on New York Metropolis’s Van Wyck Expressway earlier than getting off at Northern Boulevard, coming into Flushing correct. Having zoned out by means of many of the automobile journey to distract myself from the crowded backseat of our household’s inexperienced Ford Taurus, I, at round 11 years previous, often sat plastered to the left-side door to create a sliver of house between me and my sister, within the center seat. However as soon as the scent drifted in, I’d get a flutter in my abdomen and look with pleasure to verify the sight of the U-Haul signal, which stood prominently above the encircling constructions. I didn’t know what U-Haul was, however to me it symbolized arrival and a promise of belonging.
My elation was rooted in Flushing’s Asian inhabitants and the prevalence of Korean on the storefront signage, which was not as seen the place we lived in Elmhurst, one other immigrant city in Queens. I additionally felt that, it doesn’t matter what, I’d not get misplaced in Flushing. How may I, in a city the place each inch had been accounted for: a hair salon on prime of a prep college on prime of a cosmetics retailer subsequent to an eyeglass store? Such a interdependence meant a compelled intimacy amongst everybody who participated in its economic system — the smells in your garments would give away the place you had simply eaten, and immediate questions like, “With whom? Is that the buddy out of your mom’s church, the one raised by her grandmother, who scored excessive on her apply S.A.T., and was caught smoking cigarettes within the again alley of her piano hagwon (a non-public prep college prevalent among the many Korean inhabitants)?”
My conception of this place could resonate with these conversant in any tight-knit neighborhood. However to photographer Janice Chung and me, Flushing is an unmatched, irreplaceable epicenter, each symbolically and in actuality, the place the unstated, lesser-known experiences of being an immigrant or the kid of immigrants got here collectively as a type of negotiation. The place our houses could include expressions of our households’ numerous areas of Korea, Flushing represented our heterogeneous Korean-ness set in opposition to an American backdrop — not in closed doorways however within the open. And similar to our lives, the one fixed about Flushing was its state of flux, which signaled towards, or at the least left room for, reinvention.
Chung describes her exhibition, HAN IN TOWN, which was on view on the Flushing City Corridor for only one week this previous Might, as a love letter to the neighborhood that raised her. The simplicity of that assertion eschews the theoretical frameworks that may burden initiatives based on the premise of affection — because the artwork world is typically suspicious of and appears down on such sentiments as being uncritical, even narcissistic. However for Chung, who was born in Flushing Hospital and nonetheless resides within the close by Contemporary Meadows neighborhood, this was a mission she had at all times wished to pursue, one which took off with some nudging from a nonprofit with which she typically collaborates referred to as KoreanAmericanStory.org.
Chung set off on foot starting in 2020. She was slowed down by the pandemic in 2021, however began once more with re-openings later that yr. She went from retailer to retailer with a written assertion in Korean describing her mission, generally with a buddy who had a greater command of spoken Korean to assist mediate. Some enterprise house owners learn the assertion and agreed to be photographed instantly. Others took extra convincing — Chung confirmed up with baggage of pastries, utilizing her imperfect Korean to allure the house owners by displaying earnestness: “I could possibly be your daughter; I’m an artist; I wish to inform your story; that is essential to me; you possibly can belief me; my dad and mom are such as you; I grew up right here; that is my 고향 (hometown).”
The pictures on view, chosen and categorized with curator Sophia Park particularly for the exhibition, had been divided into 5 sections: exteriors, eating places, hair stylists and barbers, talent labor (auto outlets, tailors, shoe restore), and, lastly, care work (nail salons and cleaners). Chung took each {photograph} after spending time with and attending to know her topics; what thus comes throughout is the settlement between the photographer and the topic.
The largest shock had been her pictures of middle-aged male enterprise house owners, acquainted to me by their gruff demeanors. Chung photographed them standing both in entrance of or inside their retailer, making eye contact along with her digital camera, shoulders and arms relaxed. In an particularly putting portrait, a tailor named Yangduk Kim of Momo Customized Tailor faces Chung with a pure grin — the traces on his face point out that he makes this expression typically. His closed lips recommend energetic listening, his phrases meandering between his mouth and throat, formulating in his thoughts, and hinted in his eyes. Proper above his portrait hangs a picture of his store’s inside; a tall bookcase holds recordsdata together with his purchasers’ names and measurements, handwritten by Mr. Kim. Subsequent to it’s an finish desk stacked with a microwave and a rice cooker.
A few of the most poignant pictures are ones that seize intergenerational companies. Ikhwan Rim and his mom, Hwa Quickly Rim, stand inside their jewellery retailer, referred to as Rim’s Wonderful Jewellery, Ikhwan’s arm over her shoulder. The within corners of his eyebrows present slight creases from pressure, that of concern, because the eldest son caring for his widowed mom, but in addition of focus, from years of gems by means of magnifying eyepieces. In the meantime, his mom friends into the digital camera with out smiling.
The factor about reinvention is that its success is predicated on an outward indifference to the previous. This isn’t attributable to precise apathy towards the previous, however as a result of for an immigrant, time strikes ahead, not backward. That’s in all probability what makes Chung’s pictures heartbreaking and charming — the stillness of the {photograph} affords me time to decelerate, which is so totally different from my lived time in Queens, so totally different additionally from the lives lived by these captured in these pictures. These locations and other people don’t often obtain love letters, however maybe, after we write to them, they’ll reply.
