IDENTITY

Titled ‘identity’, this photography project is a documentation of diverse people living abroad, away from home country or mixed people. 

 

I’m going to take photograph and interview such people in Moscow for 2 weeks. It’s first time for me to visit Russia.

 

I am a Japanese photographer. But I had been a Korean until recently. 

 

My father is a third-generation Korean though he was born and raised in Japan in the 1960s. 

My mother was also Korean but changed her nationality together with her brother who wanted to work as a public servant which is open only for Japanese nationalities. 

 

Japanese Nationality law had been reviewed in 1985, and that allowed two of my younger brothers to choose nationalities either of father’s or mother’s, and they chose to be Japanese.

 

With a Japanese name, I went to Japanese school and worked for Japanese companies, having my life as a Japanese yet my nationality was Korean.

 

This photographic series commits with cross-cultural practice beyond controversial meanings and concepts of  ‘identity’.