Seung Hwan Oh
Seung-Hwan Oh works and lives in Seoul, where he was born and raised until moving to New York where he studied film and photography at Hunter College. His work and practice stem from his interest and approach toward other disciplinary thoughts and ideas, from philosophy to sciences. His most recent work, exhibited at Zaha Museum, was inspired by the notion of the first advent of vision in life on earth, and his current work focuses on implementing microbial growth on film as a means to explore the impermanence of matter as well as the material limitations of photography.
He blends science and art for an interesting and unique take on photography. As a microbiologist, he encourages the growth of fungus onto his films. The stunning result is then caused by experimenting with immersing the developed film in water, over a period of months or years. The beautiful destruction that takes place involves the light sensitive chemicals being eaten away by microbes, leaving a delicate and surreal visual conclusion.
The process for “Impermanence” is a unique, albeit a painstaking one. To put things in perspective, Seung Hwan has said that only one out of 500 frames comes out properly and that he only has 15 of them so far since he started the project.
He begins by taking a photo using his Hasselblad 500 C/M loaded with Fujichrome Provia 400X. “I use the medium format color reversal film to see the damages on the image more clearly”. He then lets homegrown bacteria sit on the developed film in water for months or even years, noting, “It is key that you have to preserve the developed film wet and warm enough that mould can propagate itself. And then you just check them once a while.”
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