Young Kim: What good is fruit that is not sweet?
When I found him at the gallery, tucked away from a main shopping street in Musashi-Koganei, Young was busy installing his prints. Coming from Alaska, he found October in Tokyo still too warm. We had a chat over coffee about his new publication, What Good is Fruit that is Not Sweet?, an unassuming but poignant contemplation on what has been inherited by his mother and what can be discovered anew.
In this interview, Young discusses immigrant experiences and the American Dream, shifting roles of care between generations, and fruit symbolism that served as the backbone of the project.
© Young Kim
Jiye Kim: Welcome to Tokyo and congratulations on the book launch! It is a deeply personal subject, photographing your mother. What led you to make a work about your family?
Young Kim: The beginning, or catalyst for the project was that she had a stroke and I started to spend a lot more time with her. Since the stroke, I realized that she was going through changes - the way she spoke, the way she acted, even the way she had her facial expressions looked slightly different. I was compelled to document some of the movements with her rather candidly, but then I also wanted to memorialize a version of my mother of that time through this project.
Jiye: Photographing your own family is not easy. What were the dynamics like between you and your mother while photographing at home?
Young: I don’t think she gave a lot of thoughts about it while I made the work. Like her usual self, she offered to do whatever that was needed to help me with the project which was also my final project for the degree program. I would say, ‘don’t worry about doing anything, just be there please’. About half of the images are candid, or true documentary while the half was a sort of collaboration with her. I was influenced by Larry Sultan’s Pictures from Home, though my mother was much more willing to support to realize my vision as she knew it was important for me. I am sure, at one point she asked herself, ‘why am I holding a watermelon?’ [laugh]
Jiye: Throughout the book, you mix images and handwritten sticky notes. Can you share your intention behind this structure?
Young: Texts on sticky notes are in fact things my mother would say to me often. They are scattered across the book to serve as a signal for a new section. Hopefully, you can see there are images related to each of the seven texts. I placed the English translation at the end of the book.
© Young Kim
Jiye: The work seems to be about a mother who was getting older and undergoing specific changes, but as much about your perspective on her life as a Korean immigrant in America. Can you elaborate on how this work reflects on the American Dream you and your family lived through?
Young: A simple way to view the American Dream is that you work to achieve the life you want. I don’t think though people realize how much work actually has to go in, up to the point of tearing your body down, how difficult it is to do so without proper language skills, and ultimately the level of stress and isolation this kind of lifestyle might lead to. I was frustrated with the idea when I realized that it caused my mother to lose her health and opportunities to enjoy life the way she intended.
My parents moved to Alaska a few years before they had me. In America, they ran a variety of restaurants - Korean, Chinese, American diner. Little bit of everything really. Growing up, I remember everyone was stressing out each other! [laugh] I joke with my mother that she loves stress but there is some truth to it: I think she developed ways to operate in high levels of stress by having to make it work without speaking the language freely in America for so long.
© Young Kim
Jiye: Some of your quiet observations at your mother’s place made me think that you were looking at it with a fresh set of eyes. Have you discovered anything new or surprising while making this work?
Young: This is not my childhood house - after my sister and I moved out, my parents moved to a smaller place. So yes, I was exploring it with curiosity. Broadly though, I realized that the way I exist in American society is different from how my parents did. When they decided to immigrate to America, they had a vision of what this place was about and how it worked. They tried to integrate themselves by following the rules, working hard and saving as much as possible, which they interpreted as being good Americans. I, on the other hand, can speak English, navigate around the world very differently than my parents and therefore, have very different ideas of success and happiness. I don’t think my mother always sees it that way. She might still try to push her understanding of what a good life is.
© Young Kim
Jiye: Tell me more about the title of the work and book, What Good is Fruit that is not Sweet?. There are a number of images of fruits being stored, served, and one broken! How do you think it relates to your mother’s story?
Young: My mother always talks about being useful in society. But, she as a guardian and parent, is getting older and, because of it what if she is unable to care for her children any more. Would that change the meaning in her relationship with her son?
Like a heart of a good shape, in a good position, in a great functioning condition is considered to be a good heart, fruits are often called good when they are sweet to eat. Can we say the same thing about people?
Lastly, I once thought that every Korean family around me always has the same fruits. But then it’s probably because Costco in Alaska imports the same type of fruits and veggies and everyone is going to buy them at the same time! Just like they are importing immigrants to America. I often think about having a shared experience as other immigrants and how it affects us as a person and as a collective.
© Young Kim
Jiye: How would you want to remember your mother at this point in time?
Young: I want to remember her as being curious about the world, and being rather funny. She is kind of funny but she doesn’t realize it. Sometimes she thinks she’s funny but it’s not funny. It doesn’t translate! It tends to happen when you know, the line between the mother and the son blurs and you are not sure who is taking care of whom. So, sometimes I find myself seeing her being funny like a child - that picture with her hand on a rock, that’s when she touched the rock in the garden center and said ‘this is a nice rock!’ but in fact it was a fake rock. She couldn't tell. I guess what I am getting at is that rather than remembering my mother as always working, I would like to remember her being her own person. With her current health condition, she can not work as much as before so that does give a little bit of freedom for her to just chill and be herself. Even with limited mobility, I think she kind of likes being able to do whatever she wants.
Jiye: What's the next step for you after this project?
Young: I think I will continue taking photographs of my mother. I’d love to travel with her and make pictures of her in places other than home. Beside that, I have been photographing high school football teams. I played it when I was younger. I even coached for a bit. I always thought sports was a great equalizer - if you work hard at it then you can rise to the top, get into a nice school and so on. As I got older though, I started to see how that was not quite true in reality. For example, a family's financial means to support their children early on in sports being a key factor for the outcome. I am interested in exploring these themes for the same reasons why I am interested in different cultural identities and how they affect the way you see the world and decisions you make.
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As we parted, I got to thinking about a mother as a guardian of produce for the household: a mother might often be in charge of preparing meals and snacks for the family. She might source vegetables and meats to serve in a palatable dish at the dinner table. She might cut seasonal fruits for dessert or snack afterwards. She might be disappointed to learn that family members find selected fruit not as sweet and juicy as they expected. She often is entrusted to pick good produce at the market - it might feel as if it was a reflection on her judgment, even though it’s rather difficult to pick only good ones. You see, after all, her children are the fruits of her labor. Are they good? She might ask herself. She might be asked.
Could the watermelon then, broken open in all its splendor on the frozen ice, be a gesture of rejection of its utilitarian judgment and an affirmation of mother’s labor? Young’s monologue does not give an answer but an invitation to contemplate on our own bond with mother, and her legacy.
"What Good is Fruit that is not Sweet? is a photography project documenting the life of my mother as she ages and confronts changes in her health and mobility. It explores our relationship as parent and child and how roles shift as time persists.
These circumstances also pose the questions of whether we can quantify or qualify how good a person is at fulfilling a societal role and whether the romanticization of the “American Dream” can influence those parameters.
These images aim to celebrate daily life with an emphasis on my interpretation of events and with less rigidity around how the events unfolded. This body of work utilizes the indexical nature of photographs to world-build, create and preserve a past that is nostalgic and reminiscent, regardless of whether it is factual." — Young Kim