Haji Oh b. 1976
Three Generations, 2004
C-print
38 5/8 x 8 5/8 in
98 x 22 cm
98 x 22 cm
Edition 2 of 2
Copyright The Artist
'Three Generations' (2004) is one of Oh’s most well-known works, created as part of her early 'Costume as a Second Skin' series in the 2000s. At this time, the artist...
"Three Generations" (2004) is one of Oh’s most well-known works, created as part of her early "Costume as a Second Skin" series in the 2000s. At this time, the artist was grappling with the loss of her grandmother who passed away in 2001, leaving an absence of family history that Oh has gone on to explore in her body of work for the past two decades. Oh created Three Generations after she lived for two years in South Korea to learn about her ancestry and study the sewing and restoration of chima chogori (a traditional Korean dress) at the National Folk Museum in Seoul.
Powerful in its simplicity, "Three Generations" draws on the vernacular of a family portrait, presenting three photographic self-portraits of the artist in a row of five wooden frames. Oh shot the film photographs in 2004 when she visited her family’s ancestral home of Jeju Island for the first time. In each of the three portraits, Oh is pictured wearing a different chima chogori—first, her grandmother’s white dress made of the white fabric popular among older generations; then her mother’s in deep red; and finally a pink and yellow one that the artist sewed for herself by hand. For Oh, clothing and textile retain memories—becoming a second skin that carries the experiences of those who created and wore them. Donning her grandmother and mother’s dresses in the island where her family came from, the artist embodies three generations of women in her family. The nostalgia of family portraiture draws viewers into a familiar space, while the repetition of Oh’s portrait in traditional Korean dress actively interrupts the long-embedded myth of Japanese ethnic homogeneity. Significantly, Oh left the two outer frames empty, representing the “unknowability” of those from the past and future.
By imaging herself in "Three Generations," Oh reinforces the enduring existence of her family’s lineage to Jeju Island, an act the artist has referred to as “the process of remembering (or actively not forgetting) the history of Korean residents in Japan, and passing on that history.”
Powerful in its simplicity, "Three Generations" draws on the vernacular of a family portrait, presenting three photographic self-portraits of the artist in a row of five wooden frames. Oh shot the film photographs in 2004 when she visited her family’s ancestral home of Jeju Island for the first time. In each of the three portraits, Oh is pictured wearing a different chima chogori—first, her grandmother’s white dress made of the white fabric popular among older generations; then her mother’s in deep red; and finally a pink and yellow one that the artist sewed for herself by hand. For Oh, clothing and textile retain memories—becoming a second skin that carries the experiences of those who created and wore them. Donning her grandmother and mother’s dresses in the island where her family came from, the artist embodies three generations of women in her family. The nostalgia of family portraiture draws viewers into a familiar space, while the repetition of Oh’s portrait in traditional Korean dress actively interrupts the long-embedded myth of Japanese ethnic homogeneity. Significantly, Oh left the two outer frames empty, representing the “unknowability” of those from the past and future.
By imaging herself in "Three Generations," Oh reinforces the enduring existence of her family’s lineage to Jeju Island, an act the artist has referred to as “the process of remembering (or actively not forgetting) the history of Korean residents in Japan, and passing on that history.”
