박민하는 맨 처음 암실에 들어갔던 날을 잊지 못한다. 검은색보다 더 어두운, 아무것도 보이지 않는 어둠 속에서 빛과, 소리와, 감각으로부터 처음으로 온전히 휘감아진다. 태어나 픽셀 형태로만 보았던 이미지가, 처음으로 새겨지고 만져질 수 있는 것임을 깨닫고 사진 작업을 하게 된다.
현재는 경계를 흐리는 것-아름다움의 범위를 확장하는 것에 관심이 있다. 필름으로 직접 찍은 사진을 기반으로 활동하면서, 이러한 작업적 형태에는 중요한 특성이 있다. 그것은 작업의 결과물이 ‘내가 먼저 직접 본 장면’으로부터 발현한다는 것이고, 그것을 비교적 짧은 시간 안에 아름다운 것-담아내야 하는 것이라고 ‘직감’하고 사진을 찍는 주체가 되어야한다는 것이다.
고로 내가 가장 먼저 설득해야 하는 것은 나 자신이다. 나를 특정한 장면 속에 던져야 하고, 그 장면이 아름답다고 느껴야 한다. 나는 최대한 밉고 징그럽고 이상한 곳, 당혹스러운 곳에서 아름다움을 발견하고 싶다. 내가 나를 설득할 수 있다면, 나의 사진으로 한 명은 더 설득할 수 있지 않을까? 우리가 더 많이 받아들이고, 익숙해지고, 아름답다고 말한다면 우리는 스스로를 포함해 더 많은 것들을 포용할 수 있지 않을까. 어쩌면 이것은 사랑, 사랑에 대한 이야기이다.
나를 포함해 많은 세상들이 아름다운 것들을 보는 것에 중독되어 있다. 나는 무엇을 볼 것인지, 무엇을 오래도록 볼 것인지, 무엇을 아름답다고 볼 것인지에 대해 고민한다. 나 스스로의 직감 안에서 정의되고 구분지어진 아름다움의 경계와 치열하게 싸운다. 내게 아름다움은 자세히, 선명히, 가까이 보는 과정으로부터 체험할 수 있는 감정이다. 나는 아름다움의 자의성을 믿고, 아름다움이 시간에 배태된 개념이라고 믿는다.
Minha Pak never forgets the first time she entered a darkroom. In a darkness darker than black, where nothing could be seen, she was completely enveloped by light, sound, and sensation for the first time. I realised that images, which I had only ever seen as pixels, could be inscribed and touched for the first time, and I began to work with photography. She has been working with photography ever since.
I am currently interested in blurring boundaries - expanding the range of beauty. Working on the basis of photographs taken directly on film, there is an important aspect to this working form. It is that the outcome of work emerges from the scene that I see firsthand, and I have to be the one who takes the photograph, who 'intuits' that it is something beautiful that needs to be captured in a relatively short time.
So the first person I have to convince is myself. I have to throw myself into a particular scene, and I have to feel that the scene is beautiful. I want to find beauty in the most repulsive, disgusting, strange, and embarrassing places possible. If I can convince myself, why not convince one more person with my photographs? If we accept more, get used to more, say beautiful, we can embrace more things, including ourselves. Maybe this is a story about love, about love.
Much of the world, including myself, is addicted to seeing beautiful things. I struggle with what to look at, what to look at long term, what to see as beautiful. I struggle with the boundaries of beauty as defined and compartmentalised within my own intuition. For me, beauty is an emotion that can be experienced through the process of looking closely, clearly, and intimately. I believe in the arbitrariness of beauty, and I believe that beauty is a concept embodied in time.
So the first person I have to convince is myself. I have to throw myself into a particular scene, and I have to feel that the scene is beautiful. I want to find beauty in the most repulsive, disgusting, strange, and embarrassing places possible. If I can convince myself, why not convince one more person with my photographs? If we accept more, get used to more, say beautiful, we can embrace more things, including ourselves. Maybe this is a story about love, about love.
Much of the world, including myself, is addicted to seeing beautiful things. I struggle with what to look at, what to look at long term, what to see as beautiful. I struggle with the boundaries of beauty as defined and compartmentalised within my own intuition. For me, beauty is an emotion that can be experienced through the process of looking closely, clearly, and intimately. I believe in the arbitrariness of beauty, and I believe that beauty is a concept embodied in time.
CV
2001 Born in Taean, South Korea
Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea
Education
2020~ Department of Communication & Painting, College of Social Sciences & Fine Arts, Seoul National University, South Korea
Exhibition
2023 Touchable, Reachable (SangSangMaDang Gallery, Seoul, South Korea)