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A scribble, not words.
I walked into the closed ward with a camera instead of a white coat.
Then, every month for three years, I simply stayed.
Stay on a photograph and the face slowly clears. Once seen, a face does not blur again. The handwriting is there from the start, but its translation surfaces only once the face has cleared. Those who read Korean can read it straight away; everyone else has to stay a while.
A scribble, not words.
Eleven prayers for the whole world, almost all ending in “may it not happen.” At the top: Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
The Reagan (written “Lady”) Administration Nancy: First Lady Secretary of Health: Choo Hae-won
A cabinet formed by one patient. The Secretary of Health, “Choo Hae-won,” is the photographer; the name is slightly misspelt and left as written. (→ 12)
Faith, hope and love are always there, and the greatest of these is love.
The Korean lines are 1 Corinthians 13:13, from memory. The English beneath them is her own translation, crossings-out and all. The only page here that needed no translator.
Hello. I am [her name]. I suddenly caught a cold and my nose is stuffed up. This is [the hospital]. I want to be discharged soon and see my son and daughter. They give us snacks here, so I find myself longing for snack time. I hope my cold gets better soon. Bye. 5 April 2026
A letter to an unknown reader, opening with “hello” and closing with “bye.”
Tidying up, I am so happy. When I tidy, my heart wants to make it truly pretty. I hope you will photograph it truly prettily. I want to hear that I tidied up best in the world.
The underlining is hers. The photograph beside it shows her belongings, laid out by her and shot from above.
1. Hello, how are you 2. Thank you very much 3. Thank you for everything 4. Thank you for everything 5. … everything 6. Thank you very much 7. Thank you for everything 8. (crossed out) … 9. …ank you, everything 10.
English greetings, written out phonetically in Korean script. After the first “hello,” almost every line is a thank-you. Line 10 is left empty. She signs her name twice: once shaped like Chinese characters, once in Roman letters.
I did not understand my illness. I hated taking medicine, and wanted to avoid it. But now I accept it. It is for survival, and because my illness is an old one, I think the medicine is necessary. I like religion. Believing in God makes me happy, because I want to know why we live and why we must die. 24 May, Buddha’s Birthday (lunar 4.8). I am still in the ward, but O Shakyamuni Buddha (佛), you who will let me go out soon and live an ordinary life. Buddha’s Birthday: the Buddha is a ray of light in my life. A photograph that came out so special. I have not lost the belief that I too will become one who practises. A truly grateful, joyful photograph.
Two entries on one page. The second was written after she received her portrait; her prayer runs straight on into what she thought of the photograph.
I am studying for the HSK (Chinese proficiency test). My goal is a job at a duty-free shop. My discharge is set for the middle of this month (April). The closer it gets, the more restless my heart feels. My dream is to set up a scholarship foundation, for children who want to study but cannot afford to.
Life Though life deceives you, do not grieve or rage. Endure the days of sorrow, and before long the day of joy will come. The present is always sad; the heart lives in the future. All is a moment. To long for something is to long for it.
Pushkin’s poem, written from memory. The last line should read “what has passed will become dear”; in her memory it became “to long for something is to long for it.”
This paper flower, the only one in the world, is also a picture of me. Because I made it myself; it is clumsy and lacking, but it is unusual, and it resembles my body and mind, the only ones on this earth.
Her paper flower is the one in the cup. The work Paper Flowers began from this page.
Lee Jae-mun / Lee Jae-myung / Lee Jun-seok / Cho Kuk / Hwang Kyo-ahn / 2PM: Ok Taec-yeon, Nichkhun, Jun. K / Junho, Wooyoung, Choi Soo-jong, Kim Myung-min / Park Shin-yang, K.will, Park Hyun-bin / Joo Won [her own name]
No sentences, only names: politicians, members of the K-pop group 2PM, actors, singers. The first name seems to be a first try at the one below it. At the end of this roll call of people from the television, she adds her own. (→ 03)
[Her name] likes home, and tangerines. Bathing, she likes to do again and again. Of flowers, she likes chrysanthemums. Respectfully, [her name]
She writes about herself in the third person. For “tangerine” she uses 밀감 (蜜柑), the old word still used on Jeju.
For thirty years as a psychiatrist, I stood inside the gaze of authority, one that defined and prescribed. Entering the closed ward with a camera instead of a white coat, I believed I had crossed a line. But the frame, too, was a one-sided power.
I simply stayed. Visiting every month for three years, in a world that moved at a different speed from the one outside, I met people each holding their place in their own way. Watching them carefully fold hopes into paper, carry poems by heart and tidy their own corner, I listened to their stories.
As time accumulated, the camera became play. The lead of the gaze was handed to them. Whether to stay inside the frame, and how much of themselves to show, was entirely theirs to decide. The prints went back to them first, and at times they took the camera themselves, photographing one another, and me. The clumsy spelling and rewritten words they set down while looking at their own photographs were their own stories, offered to the world.
One day, one of them formed a cabinet for the Reagan administration and appointed me Secretary of Health. As a photographer, I hang that letter of appointment on the wall with the same weight as the photographs.
The handwriting is the sitters’ own, translated from Korean. Spelling and wording are kept as written. Names are left in the handwriting only.