Hermit Kingdom Statement

The book project Hermit Kingdom represents another distinct approach of my studio practice. Hermit Kingdom is a handmade photobook containing straight images from my time living in Seoul, South Korea. While this project verges on the biographic, the visual narrative is not so much about my life as it is about the general process of adjusting to a new environment. While photographing my new surroundings, I was concerned with the precise organization of space within the picture plane; it was an act of control and the pursuit of stillness. The Korean peninsula was long known as the Hermit Kingdom. It actively kept to itself to avoid conflicts with its powerful neighbors: China and Japan. Today, this moniker is used primarily to describe North Korea for different reasons. Still, I have employed this term as a type of mantra for the production of these images and of the book itself.  In a city of twenty-four million, solitude is hard to come by. This project seeks out solitude within the photographic frame and represents both a physical and mental space.  These images are painstakingly composed and visually organized to enhance feelings of calm, seclusion and grounding both for myself and for the viewer.

-Josh Hobson