At their most simple, the photographs from JeongMee Yoon's series "The Pink & Blue Project" portray children as residents of two distinct environments: Girls live in pink rooms; boys live in blue rooms. But both genders exhibit an increasingly prevalent commonality among today's youth: the sheer amount of things they own. They grow up with more things than they can possibly look at, and as a result, easily transition into multi-tasking grown-ups, bombarded with enormous quantities of media, objects, and thoughts. In today's world, superconsumption begins at birth.
The photos represent the past, present, and future of consumption in a tangible mass. Yoon was born in South Korea in 1969 when free-market capitalism and globalism were burgeoning concepts that hadn't yet taken root. Growing up with two brothers, she didn't have her own room and doesn't remember owning any toys, aside from a few dolls. The generation after, those born in the materialistic '80s, began to collect an overwhelming amount of toys and products. Yet their consumption pales in comparison to the young millennials that Yoon depicts in her telltale photos.
The New York Times reports that people currently consume more than three times the amount of information they did in 1960. The next generation will consume exponentially more. Kids today are raised on miniature e-readers and specially designed mobile phones. They can't fathom a world without the Internet. From South Korea to the United States, Yoon captures the moments at the height of childhood when these habits of hyper consumption begin to take shape. Yoon was inspired to take photos six years ago by her daughter, SeeWoo, who was obsessed with the color pink. Yoon laid out all of her daughter's pink objects and cataloged them as if they were articles in a museum. It was a perfect collection that reflected the personality of her daughter, as well as the nature of modern consumption. "These days," Yoon says, "People's possessions represent their identity."
In "Lauren and Carolyn and Their Pink and Purple Things," Yoon discovers a priceless symmetry between fraternal twins. They're looking into a mirror, at ease surrounded by their precious worldly possessions. It's easy to see how an obsession with a color can grow into brand loyalty, a life-long obsession with buying.
The main focus of Yoon's work is not to address overconsumption, but it's a theme that pervades regardless. When asked what superconsumer traits she sees in any of her young subjects, she says, "If anything, I'm worried about the addiction boys have in Korea to computer games. But that's a worldwide problem."