Eui-Jip Hwang Live Your Dream

Live Your Dream explores South Korea's renewal of the Korean identity, which has been remolded by the booming beauty industry within the country’s consumer culture.The belief is that by adding colored contact lenses, skin care treatments, and facial contouring surgeries to your "portfolio", you can boost your social acceptance. Aspirational requirements for males and females alike, Koreanness embodies a modern aesthetic profile centered around cosmetic procedures.

The project revitalizes and recontextualizes the archive of found advertisements and photographs to illuminate what this newly-modified Koreanness means in the modern world.

Eui-Jip Hwang (b. South Korea) is a photo-based artist residing in New York City. By fusing documentary and fictional narratives, Hwang shapes an image of society through the use of appropriation and image-making practices. His photographic works explore current image cultures by referencing the visual language of advertising. He holds a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York.