Your Sunday Inspiration ✨

Carolyn Mendelsohn, Edith Tudor-Hart, Byron Smith ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ PARK Youngsook, A Flower Shakes Her #1, 2005, C-Print, 120x120cm, © PARK Youngsook, courtesy of the Artist and ARARIO GALLERY Ahead of Frieze Seoul’s opening next week, we’re taking a deep dive into Park Youngsook’s work. The only photographer featured in Talking Bodies: Asian Women Artists at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul this autumn, Youngsook is also included in Arario Gallery’s group show at Frieze Seoul, which pays special attention to her career. Park Youngsook is one of South Korea’s foremost feminist photographers. Beginning her career in the 1960s, she has become widely known for challenging narratives around womanhood and femininity. In 1966 she held her first solo exhibition, something exceptional for a women photographer in the region at the time. Her best-known project is Mad Women, 1999, which seeks to mimic conventional femininity whilst deconstructing it. In one image, a seemingly dismayed woman holds a stuffed plush object, a recreation of the mother figure with an uncanny sentiment. In another, a woman looks at the viewer with an impassive expression, whilst holding the foot of a child lying playfully on the floor. The pair are surrounded by domestic household objects such as ingredients, clothes, a telephone, and cleaning supplies, but the women’s body is powerful and firm. In A Flower Shakes Her (2005), Youngsook adds to her wider Mad Women project, photographing women in natural environments surrounded by blooms. “Flowers are a symbol of women, a normative cultural manifestation. Beautiful. Vulnerable. Disseminator of joy,” she explained. “However… I am uncomfortable with this culture that compares flowers to women. I want to completely overthrow these longstanding narratives.” In A Flower… Youngsook dresses women in similar hues to the flora or places them as minor details alongside the blossoming plants, so that the female body is overpowered; her work is a critique of the objectification of women and their bodies as delicate petals or blooming gardens. “My heart breaks. / My body cries out in pain / Old thoughts are uprooted. / At last, we can discard our ‘good-girl complex’ for ‘madness’. / People call us ‘Mad Women’. / Only then do we realise that we had been seized by wrong thoughts. / We are liberated.” Artist statement: Mad Women Project, 1999, by Park Youngsook In the Studio with Carolyn Mendelsohn In an old mill overhanging the Leeds and Liverpool canal, [Carolyn Mendelsohn]( has created a light-filled haven [Read more]( [Build the way you want]( “I’d like to ask the world for curiosity and action”: The lives of three photographers in Palestine Beyond Gaza, image-makers are creating representations of Palestinian life that challenge western stereotypes and find beauty in the everyday [Read more]( [Build the way you want]( Rebuilding Edith Tudor-Hart through a feminist lens The photographer’s career has been overshadowed by her communist links and her more famous brother, but 25 years of her work is now being reappraised [Read more]( [Build the way you want]( Byron Smith’s testament to enduring life amidst conflict in Ukraine The American photographer’s debut monograph was inspired by a celebrated 19th-century poet and the stories of people he met on his journey [Read more]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [1854 Media Ltd, 244-254 Cambridge Heath Rd, Cambridge Heath, London, E2 9DA, United Kingdom Click here to update your email preferences]( [Click here to unsubscribe from all emails](