Somewhere along the way, South Korean photographer JeongMee Yoon noticed that her 8-year-old daughter refused to play with or wear anything that wasn't pink [ya think?!], and so she began the Pink Project and the Blue Project, in which little kids are photographed in the midst of all their gender-coded stuff. Pink and blue are equally overwhelming in both cultures where Yoon shot, the US and Korea.
The press release for her New York gallery's exhibition last January [Yoon got her MFA at School for the Visual Arts last year] talks about "the material abundance of our society and a parent’s love of their child pervade the series."
I'd rewrite that as "the material abundance as a perception of a parent's love." Especially given the young ages of some of these kids, these photos are as much about the unseen parents as they are about the kids, or even the corporate producers of all this color-coded gear.
Yoon received an award from the Geonhi Foundation, which also published a book of Pink Projects & Blue Projects. Contact the artist for details.
The Blue Project & The Pink Project by JeongMee Yoon [ photyoo.simspace.com]
Yoon showed large-scale editions of the Pink & Blue Projects at Rosier Gallery in Jan-Feb. 2007 [artnet]
