-An apple a girl gave me had a scratch on it.

The popular image of adolescence is disseminated and affirmed by all kinds of media. The methods of expression are even at times inciteful to these girls. But I am uncomfortable with the canonical form. For some reason, adolescence has a remoteness from my point of view, and yet I still have memories of that period in my dreams. Frustratingly, if I tried to express this feeling in words, it would be qualified and converted into a different meaning; so, I created this work, albeit in a faltering way.

The relationships between adults, such as parents and teachers, and the teenage girls are similar to those between the position of filming (as the strong) and being filmed (as the weak). Therefore, I thought that photography would be an appropriate medium for observation when addressing the theme of adolescence. I also thought that the permeability of the image, which is both objective and unintentionally evoked subjectively, is the very act of gazing.

During the shoot, the girls wore their uniforms and blended in with their surroundings, maintaining a certain distance from me in a bewildering manner. They did not continue their awkward conversations with me, and it seemed that the lens was the only thing that we relied on. I was tempted to ask for answers to settle these unsettling exchanges, but decided to let the meaning of the exchange wander. My sense was that when their uniforms rubbed against their skin, these girls felt physically secure in their own existence and mentally at odds with the contours given to them by their parents.

After photographing a few of them, the uniforms began to look like chrysalises protecting these unfinished girls from outside pressure. The uniform helps them express themselves silently. It has the power to make the viewer pause and think. But we should not easily follow the image of girls in uniform. We must be perplexed as they were perplexed. If we are comfortable with the images we are presented with, it is the same as watching images being broadcasted while formulating a clever strategy.

In the end, I did not understand the background of their change. However, as I gaze at them as they change, I, who was once a young girl, begin to change as well. I thought that I should observe them without knowing if they are shifting within the safety of the chrysalises, while giving a fixed image to the outside world as a blank space, which, in a sense, is also the image they are expected to present to the world. It is in this back-and-forth gaze that their true attitude, which is camouflaged under the name of adolescence, emerges.