Pre Order
Shipping mid September.
Session Press, 152 pages, Hardcover, 240 x 290mm, 2026,
First Edition of 1000 copies.
*
Photographed throughout the early 2000s and composed entirely of
previously unpublished works, Kid Echo revisits the world of adolescence
first explored in Park’s acclaimed monograph Kid Nostalgia (2014).
Through a refined selection of direct encounters with his subjects, the
publication celebrates Park’s extraordinary sensitivity toward portraiture.
More than twenty years after all of these photographs were made, Park
revisits the work with a deeper appreciation for its openness and emotional
ambiguity.
Born in Seoul and educated in New York, Park studied painting at Pratt
Institute before returning to Korea, where he began photographing
teenagers he encountered throughout Seoul and its outskirts. During his
years in New York, Park encountered the work of photographers such as
Walker Evans, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Diane Arbus, whose
exhibitions shaped his understanding of photography as an expressive and
psychological medium. He was equally influenced by French New Wave
cinema, particularly the films of Jean-Luc Godard.
Rather than constructing a fixed social portrait of youth culture, Park
photographed instinctively, drawn to subtle emotional tensions visible in
posture, expression, and gaze. In an interview with writer and curator Marc
Feustel included in the publication, Park reflects on his search for what he
describes as “the moment of emotion,” inspired in part by Henri Cartier-
Bresson’s notion of the “decisive moment.” For Park, however, the goal
was not perfect composition or narrative clarity, but emotional presence: “I
wanted them to be completely relaxed so their innocence could emerge.”
The emotional complexity of adolescence has long fascinated
photographers around the world. Kid Echo resonates with the observational
intimacy of Nigel Shafran, the emotionally charged portraits of adolescence
found in Johan van der Keuken’s Wij zijn 17 (We Are 17), and the
introspective emotional atmosphere explored in Yurie Nagashima’s Empty
White Room.