Yoon Jeong Mee (1962- ) graduated from the Department of Painting at the College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University in 1992 and the Department of Industrial Design (Photography Design Major) at the Graduate School of Industrial Art, Hongik University in 1999. In 2006, she earned an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She held solo exhibitions including 《Zoo》 (Gallery Boda, Seoul, 1999), 《Zoo II》 (Time Photo Space, Seoul, 2000), 《5th Annual Daum Prize Solo Show: The Pink & Blue Project》 (Kumho Museum, Seoul, 2007), 《The Pink & Blue Project II 》(Window Gallery, Gallery Hundai, Seoul, 2009), 《The Pink & Blue Project》 (San Francisco International Airport Museum, San Francisco, USA, 2009), and 《The Pink & Blue Project》 (Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, USA). Yoon won the Paula Rhodes Memorial Award in New York, USA in 2006, the Fifth Daum Prize by Parkgeonhi Foundation in 2006, the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in Hong Kong, China in 2011, and the Publication Prize of the 9th Ilwoo Photography Awards in 2018.
Yoon Jeong Mee has questioned the structure of human life and society as well as the relationship between the two. Her photographs visualize and categorize phenomenon that have already been institutionalized and penetrated the daily lives of individuals and society. Since the 1999 solo exhibition Zoo, her interest in spatial structures dominated by power hierarchies and the ruling apparatus as well as individuals within such has driven her sharp gaze toward society. Yoon Jeong Mee’s photography ultimately sends a message that human existence in the structure of contemporary society is no different from that of animals trapped in zoos or taxidermized in museums. Her best-known work 〈The Pink & Blue Project〉 is also related to her previous works in that it makes the viewer reflect on how social customs and systems dictate contemporary people’s consumption and preferences.
