2023-ongoing
Jeffrey’s Blue
archival pigment print, 80×60cm, 2023.
archival pigment print, 80×60cm, 2023.
The year I turned twenty, I moved to Gyeongsan. The community I encountered at university felt unstable. I often saw people grappling with depression. Aimless running, the weight of age, and the recurring noise and silence of broken relationships were the reasons behind their sadness.
Jeffrey Arnett, an American developmental psychologist, coined the term Emerging Adulthood¹ to describe those between 18 and 29. He identified five key characteristics of this period: identity exploration, instability, self-focus, a sense of possibility, and feeling in-between. As we approached graduation, we felt caught between dreams and reality.
Every society imposes specific tasks on each life stage. In Korea, that weight seems especially heavy. In a country where children are ranked according to their height, grades, and even preferences, we calculate each other's pace and position day and night, figuring out where we stand. Social conventions like “You should have a job, get married, and buy a house by this age” gradually erode personal agency and rhythm. We now see achievement only through the eyes of others.
Still, I called this wandering a journey, believing it would one day end. The pressure we shared was temporary and a universal symptom of contemporary life. In time, we would treat instability as stability and learn to navigate solitude and anxiety gracefully. Some might become numb to pain, having embodied tension for too long, and eventually lose their countenance.
Where are we headed? Gyeongsan was my stopover, surrounded by three mountains and teeming with greenery and insects. My friends and I wandered somewhere between student and member of society, pondering who we were. With anxiety as thrust at our feet and hope as the lift that carried us, we prepared to take flight. I didn’t try to delay or rush my timing. I assumed the journey would end once we left the institutional system, but no one could guarantee our destination. Becoming an adult was something inevitable.