Yu Hwa Jung's first solo exhibition, 《Faces of All Things》 (얼굴들), opens on Wednesday, October 21. It runs seven days, through Tuesday the 27th, at Comeamico Gallery in Seongsan-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. The poster also carries a span of years: 2019 to 2026.

Eight years of moments

According to the artist's announcement on Threads, this is a first show built from eight years of film. It ties together, in photographs and short texts, the people, animals and landscapes she met while moving from place to place, and the moments that happened in between. The exhibition statement says it collects "the things that stay with you long after, rather than any special event." The list runs from animals met on a beach and conversations struck up by chance to views on the road and scenes from an ordinary day.

A pasture under a violet dawn sky, with mist lying across it. A goat with a brown head and white body stands up with its front hooves on a wire fence post and looks toward the camera. A sheep grazes behind it, and a lone tree and a low ridge sit in the distance.
A goat up on its hind legs with its hooves on the wire. The sky is violet and mist lies over the pasture behind.

The faces in the title do not stop at people. The statement puts the faces of animals, the sea, cities and the places she stayed on the same line. The poster makes the point first. The center of the frame belongs to a pony coming toward the wire, with out-of-focus roses hanging in front.

A grass field on a farm under a clear sky. A black-and-white goat wearing a pink harness walks ahead, and a child with braided hair, a lilac top and rain boots follows behind. A wire fence and a line of trees stand in the back, and long shadows fall across the grass.
A goat in a harness and a child following it. Both are walking the same way.
A street lined with trees in autumn color and parked white cars. One person stands beside a car while another, on a short flight of steps, raises a hand to photograph something. On the right, a white cockatoo flies into the frame, blurred by motion.
Two people on a street of turning trees. A white cockatoo flies in from the right, blurred.

The three photographs released so far carry the same idea. The goat with its hooves on the wire looks straight at the lens. The harnessed goat and the child head the same way. On the tree-lined street, the cockatoo sweeping into the edge of the frame catches the eye before the two people do. None of them decides in advance who the subject is.

A first photo-essay book

Timed to the show, she plans to self-publish her first photo-essay book. The released mockup spreads either set a photograph against a page of text or lay two photographs side by side. The texts run in Korean and English, one above the other.

A mockup of an open book. The left page is filled with a photograph of a person sitting in a chair under a tree with a brown dog standing in front, a car parked along the curb. The right page holds a short text in Korean and English and the names Karen & Keisha.
A mockup spread. Opposite the photograph, the text runs in Korean and English.

One page carries a short piece that opens with "I like old ladies." The English version on the same page reads:

I like talking to old ladies especially the ones I meet while traveling. I always remember our conversations. Their advice, complaints, even their nagging, I enjoy it all. They seem to be natural storytellers. And they seem to like me too. Maybe they're just happy to find someone who will listen.

Below the text are the names Karen & Keisha. The photograph opposite shows a person sitting in a chair in the shade of a tree, with a brown dog standing in front.

A mockup of an open book. The left page is blank, and the lower half of the right page holds a single photograph: a Siamese cat on a red leash sitting between two feet in sandals. Below the photograph is written Havana, Cuba.
A spread that leaves one page blank and carries a single photograph, captioned “Havana, Cuba.”
A mockup of an open book. Green mountains run across both pages. On the left, a small boat crosses the water off a beach; on the right, a ridge rises beyond dry grass bending in the wind.
Fiji's mountains and sea split across two pages. On the left, a small boat crosses the water.
A mockup of an open book. The left page shows a child standing on a wooden rail by the water with people swimming beyond; the right page shows children playing on a lawn, captioned 2024, VIC.
Left, a child up on a seaside rail; right, children on a lawn. The right photograph is captioned “2024, VIC.”

Other pages carry a short place name or year. The cat on a red leash on a street in Havana is captioned "Havana, Cuba," and the children on the lawn "2024, VIC." The format, page count, price and where to buy it have not been announced. Whether it will be on hand at the gallery first is something to watch for in the artist's own updates.

The artist will be there

She has said she plans to stay at the gallery for the run of the show. The venue is Comeamico, an exhibition space on Seongmisan-ro in Mapo-gu, Seoul. You can ask the person who took a photograph about the story behind it. Which face will you end up standing in front of the longest?

Visiting

The run covers both weekdays and a weekend. The weekend days are Saturday the 24th and Sunday the 25th.