서울 도심 10대 남녀. 학교 땡땡이를 치고 친구들과 어울려 다니다. 반항, 매력, 슬픔을 동시에 지닌 10대들. 박성진 사진.

한국 10대  반사회적 남녀 2001,목 칼라가 있는 셔츠, 주름잡힌 스커트, 뭔가 불편해보이는 머리 모양새, 여드름.

사진 작가 박성진 작품.

 

반사회적 분위기를 풍기는 서울 10대 남녀의 에너지를 사진에 담다. 이는 억지로 만들어낼 수 없는 분위기.

학교 땡땡이를 치고 친구들과 어울려 다니는 10대 남녀의 반항, 미성숙함을 사진에 담다.

박성진은 이들의 날 것, 생짜 아름다움을 발견하다.

 

이런 반항아, 문제아들, 한 편으로는 매력적이지만, 다른 한편으로는 보통 아이들을 무시했기 때문에, 평범한 아이들에게는 상처로도 남았을 학창시절 노스탈지아.

 

나이든 기성 세대는 이들을 좀 못마땅하게 여겼을 것이다.

 

그러나 이 반항아 10대들은 우리들의 얼굴이기도 했다. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIGHTBOX PHOTO ESSAY'RECKLESSNESS AND REBELLION': MEET THE COOL KIDS OF SOUTH KOREA

'Recklessness and Rebellion': Meet The Cool Kids of South Korea

From Kid Nostalgia

From Kid Nostalgia Sungjin Park

 

BY ANRONG XU JULY 22, 2014 4:00 AM EDT

 

Collared shirts, pleated skirts, awkward haircuts, and acne, all these are present in South Korean photographer Sungjin Park’s new book, Kid Nostalgia, which focuses on schoolkids in Seoul.

 

Park, while studying at the Pratt Institute in 2001, traveled back to his native South Korea where he wandered the streets, befriending what he describes to TIME as “the kids who were the only ones that seemed exciting and alive in this city.

 

There was a certain antisocial energy in their look and attitude,” he adds. “But what I wanted to do was capture their charisma—something you can’t manufacture.”

 

To make his photographs, Park spent time with his new friends when they cut class, skipping school to hang out with their partners.

 

“I had found something rather pure and naïve in their rebellion and immaturity,” he says. “The way they reveal themselves as they roam around the periphery of the school system is so raw that there’s an ironic beauty to it.”

 

Park’s work provides both an attractive and a painful sense of nostalgia: Here we see classmates we may once have been friends with, but they are also the cool kids, the ones who might have ignored us.

 

“There’s a sort of imperfect freedom and recklessness to their rebellion and sadness,” he adds, “to their style that the older generation refuses to tolerate.

 

Whatever or whoever is in the picture is a portrait of the one who takes it. These faces were perhaps my own face.”

 

Sungjin Park is a photographer based in Seoul. Kid Nostalgia is published by the South Korean imprint Propaganda.

 

AnRong Xu is a contributor to LightBox. Follow him on Twitter @Anrizzy