SUNMIN LEE

Time of Life, the Face of Time

Choi Bonglim (critic)

Lee, sunmin's work exemplifies this realization of a critical distance through a minimal amount of a direction. Taking housewives in their thirties and their homes as her subject, Lee carefully inserted herself into the family's daily life and effectively manipulated the situation. However, this minimal involve ment yielded extraordinary result. We can see this the everyday reality df a home, transfigured into something unfamiliar in Lee's images, is overwhelmed by ennui, lethargy, exhaustion and a complete breakdown in communication. When faced with such bleak truths in Lee's photographs, the banal discourse on people's lives in their thirties and hollow theories of happiness crumble helplessly. Unfulfilled vows of love, doubtful promises of happiness, disintegrating young dream, and so on: because nothing happens in the everyday scenes of Lee's photographs, they take on tragic dimensions.