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Make me your country

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

© Juno Joo - He wears the mask of a gatekeeper, someone who guards what he does not own, standing somewhere between devotion and doubt.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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Dates

2024 - 2025
Author

Juno Joo
Locations London, Galicia, Seoul

This project explores love and identity in an intercultural relationship, capturing tenderness and tension as two people navigate difference and asking if love can bridge cultural divides.

This project explores the complexities of love, identity, and cultural exchange through the lens of an intercultural relationship. The work examines the experience of two individuals from different backgrounds as they attempt to bridge their differences while navigating the nuances of connection, miscommunication, and understanding. Love, in this context, is both a unifying force and a revealing one, exposing the ways in which cultural identity shapes who we are and how we relate to others.

Through photography, the work captures moments of tenderness and tension, illustrating the beauty and challenges of embracing another’s world. It asks whether love alone is enough to overcome cultural divides, or if certain differences remain unspoken yet ever-present. By exploring these themes, Make Me Your Country reflects on the reality of modern relationships shaped by globalisation, migration, and the deep-rooted ties to where we come from.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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She wears the mask of a spirit medium, a figure who calls forth both ancestral memory and personal longing. In this image, the spirit medium and the foolish guardian embody both tradition and contradiction. She mediates between what is lost and what is sacred; he fumbles with the lock of connection, standing awkwardly at the threshold. Together, they walk the edge, between cultures, between selves

© Juno Joo - He wears the mask of a gatekeeper, someone who guards what he does not own, standing somewhere between devotion and doubt.

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He wears the mask of a gatekeeper, someone who guards what he does not own, standing somewhere between devotion and doubt.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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A pair of mandarin ducks lies on the bed with a man, their promise of unity quietly contrasted by the complexity of real intimacy.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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We lie side by side, I clothed, he bare, beneath the quiet gaze of a mandarin duck pair. In Korean tradition, these birds are gifted to newlyweds, symbolising fidelity and unity. But here, the symbolism stumbles. Our bodies rest together, but our cultural languages do not. He looks toward me, and I look away. The ritual speaks in a voice I understand, but he cannot hear.

© Juno Joo - Bound to the tree, the red thread traces a fragile line of fate, suggesting a connection that exists somewhere beyond sight.

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Bound to the tree, the red thread traces a fragile line of fate, suggesting a connection that exists somewhere beyond sight.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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Separated in space yet joined by the same red thread, two voices reach across distance, holding a fragile line of connection.

© Juno Joo - A man holding Korean traditional garments for women.

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A man holding Korean traditional garments for women.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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Framed by the bars, a private moment unfolds under an external gaze, revealing the fragile boundary between self and observer.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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A merging of two portraits, neither too faint nor fully defined. Where their images overlap, the tones deepen, yet never become complete. Somewhere in that in-between space, their connection takes shape.

© Juno Joo - A hidden Chess piece surround by Go board and stones.

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A hidden Chess piece surround by Go board and stones.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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The table becomes a quiet battleground of intention and misinterpretation. He moves a stone in a game he does not know. I watch his fingers, not to correct, but to witness. Behind the ‘Baduk’ board, a lone chess piece reminds us that we were raised in different languages. Our shadows cross, quietly unaware of the game’s end.

© Juno Joo - Galician mask from Spain and Korean mask.

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Galician mask from Spain and Korean mask.

© Juno Joo - A couple figures through a hole in window.

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A couple figures through a hole in window.

© Juno Joo - Hands gathered in prayer beside a protective charm, two systems of belief meet in quiet coexistence.

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Hands gathered in prayer beside a protective charm, two systems of belief meet in quiet coexistence.

© Juno Joo - Image from the Make me your country photography project

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We stand behind glass, dressed in traditional wedding garments, wearing masks from two distant places, Korea and Galicia, Spain. At first, they were meant to signal difference. But when we made them, we were startled by their resemblance: painted cheeks, bold lashes, almost twin-like. What we thought divided us, mirrored us. We became a display of similarity disguised as otherness.

© Juno Joo - A fusion wedding. The two figures wear Tuxedo and Victorian wedding dress in a Korean folklore architecture, Hanok.

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A fusion wedding. The two figures wear Tuxedo and Victorian wedding dress in a Korean folklore architecture, Hanok.

Make me your country by Juno Joo