Imong

This work is about a man and the society he lived in, struggling against a dictatorial government. Imong (“Different Dream”) traces his journey through sites of pain, ending where his son has become a policeman, exploring the irony in the history.

During the 1980s military regime in South Korea, Yeon-In Kim, born in South Chungcheong, was expelled from university for participating in the democracy movement. He founded the publishing house "Him" and continued his activism, serving a total of fifty-two months in prison under the Public Order Act and the National Security Act throughout 1983 and between 1989 and 1994.

In 2003, a document recognising his contribution to democratisation arrived at his home. In 2019, his son became a policeman—a subtly disorienting twist in their family history.

The photographer was eight when the document arrived, asking what “democratisation” meant while staring at the compensation written with seven zeroes. She found “absurdity” through the story of his son, who became a police officer after the country became democratic. This speaks to both the history of dictatorship my generation could never imagine and his emotional conflict when confronting his son in uniform.

It is a story about a society that failed to protect the individual, and about a man who lived through what could only be described as a kind of surreal dream.

This man in the photo is a protagonist in a fantasy-like scenario, returning to the very places where he was once arrested and tortured, but now standing tall, quiet, composed, and dignified. This photographic space captures the era that once felt like a surreal fantasy, materialising those intangible memories and emotions into a tangible form.

Imong (이몽), meaning different dream, reflects not only his journey, but the flawed society and the fragments of history. Violence and oppression no longer define him. His existence alone proves it.