This photo-documentary book project is about the representation of the meanings containedwithin the South Korean flag, known as the Taegeukki; the red and blue ‘tennis ball’ in the centre, the Taegeuk, representing Yin and Yang and their balanced, yet opposite, respective characteristics; the various combinations of broken and unbroken black line trigrams named Geon, Gon, Ri, and Gam, in each of the four corners - each trigram with its own particular set of seven characteristic meanings; and all set out on a pure white background. The aim of the project is to depict South Korea’s national identity in a way that has not been done before, by either Koreans or non-Koreans. A national identity depicted via a ‘deconstruction’ of the nation’s flag.

But it is also about going back. I had lived in Seoul for eighteen months between 1996 and 1998 on the well trodden path of teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and, despite having a Korean wife, had not been back since. At the time I lived in Korea I had no interest in photography and have, over the last six or seven years, frequently felt frustrated that I have no visual record of my time there. But more than that, I wanted again to experience the feeling of living in a culture so different to my own - the differences in language, mentality, beliefs,social structure, food, technology, and the Koreans’ view of their place in the world. I wanted re-visit a country that has industrially and technologically made great strides forward over the last half century - this despite the threat form its Northern brother just across the DMZ (De-Militarised Zone); a country that has given me my significant other. I also wanted to experience the changes that had surely happened over the last decade and a half, and, conversely, to explore what hadn’t changed at all - not just in Korea, but in myself and my relationship with and attitude to the country, her people and her culture. I felt that perhaps I had lost some of the feeling for, and understanding of, the Korean culture that I used to have and wanted to try and re-connect with those feelings - or whatever, if anything, had replaced them.

The meanings of the flag are depicted by a combination of photographs, text and,whereappropriate, Korean Sijo (pronounced Shee-jo) - a poetry form started in the thirteenth century and traditionally used as song lyrics, that the Koreans like to point out, predates Japanese Haiku.

The book can now be viewed and purchased at www.blurb.com. Just enter the word Taegeukki into the search field and you’ll be taken to it.


Tony Hayes
April 2012