Daewoong Kim

 
The subject of loss is pertinent in my life. Indeed, loss is something that we all experience in some way or another, at some time or another. A year after the death of his mother, my father cannot escape a feeling of great sadness not only over her death but also in particular, that he can no longer eat her food. His overwhelming feeling of sorrow about this great loss is the inspiration behind this body of work.
 
Considering my father’s loss made me consider the distance between my mother and myself. This is a distance that can be physically measured in distance, as my mother still lives in Korea while I am now living in London. There is also a deep sense of distance between my childhood memories of my mother and my life now. Like my father, the most distinct memories of my mother are also encapsulated in the idea of food.
 
Food seems a central aspect of my identity as a person. In many ways, particular foods establish my identity as a Korean, but certain foods also resonate strongly with me as reminders about my identity as my mother’s son. My photographs show food that I would consider as my ‘comfort food’. Comfort food is itself a very individual, but also cultural entity.
 
My work is an attempt to begin to explore these feelings and ideas about memory, identity and loss, by using photography as a means to access the past through the present. Still life presents us with an idea of something being unmoving and unchanging, it also offers the possibility of an image that abides memory and invites contemplation. Ideas of loss and childhood, always take place within change, although, at some level, it feels as if nothing has changed at all. From this arises an ambiguity of feeling, which I am keen to explore through these images. The distance between myself as an adult and my memory of myself as a child increases with time. Many things change and many things never change. It is that ambiguous feeling as my mother’s son- that sustains my work.