[RURAL FOOD REIMAGINED] Photographer rediscovers community through country life

On a recent Friday afternoon, a bright-eyed Hong Kong-American with a Nikon camera lingered at the back of a farmers’ gathering in Gongju, South Chungcheong. Keenly observing, she shuffled around the perimeter of the room, snapping pictures of...

The Korean countryside is often stigmatized as obsolete compared to the glitz and glamor of city life. Recently, however, there is a growing number of people moving out of the populous Seoul and surrounding areas and into small rural towns to reconnect with food and build a more conscious, community-oriented lifestyle. In this interview series, the Korea JoongAng Daily looks at what is brewing far beyond Korea’s cities and how ideas for sustainable food culture are playing out in creative ways.

Fresh and preserved namul (seasoned greens), dried fish and tofu in a large gamasot (cauldron) in Mungyeong, North Gyeongsang. The photo was taken during an event that aimed to share the local ingredients and recipes of Mungyeong. Siu says that "despite the smallness of their peninsula, or perhaps because of it, Koreans know their land more deeply than most. Even after all my travels across Korea, I know there is still more to see and eat."[YOLANTA SIU]

On a recent Friday afternoon, a bright-eyed Hong Kong-American with a Nikon camera lingered at the back of a farmers’ gathering in Gongju, South Chungcheong.

Keenly observing, she shuffled around the perimeter of the room, snapping pictures of young locals cooking and mingling.

She doesn’t speak perfect Korean, nor is she a farmer, but nevertheless, this is the place where Yolanta Siu, 31, has come to understand the necessity of committing to people.

“It was happenstance, but when this here became my life, I discovered the real meaning and value of being part of a community,” she said.

Siu is a self-proclaimed visual diarist, documenting ways people relate to their food and the environment amid changing cultural landscapes.

Her photos are a window into authentic country life in Korea. She captures very natural moments, mostly of food, people and scenery. The objects in her frame are rarely posed or staged. Through them, she artfully reveals the vibrancy of the Korean countryside that more and more people are coming to appreciate for its stark contrast to the mounting stress of city life.

Yolanta Siu looks through her photos during a famers' gathering in Gongju, South Chungcheong. [LEE JIAN]

Her central project right now is about gwinong, a Korean term for a growing population of urban dwellers ditching the high rises and moving to rural areas to become farmers.

While Korea struggles with its continually spiraling populations in rural areas, over the last several years, the greater Seoul area has been seeing a small exodus of its young people who pack up their whole lives to live in the countryside and farm. Over 500,000 people moved from the city to the countryside to become farmers in 2022, and 46 percent of them were under 30 years old, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

Siu, who has long been fascinated with the relationship between cities and the countryside and people and food, was naturally drawn to this phenomenon.

“I think across all my projects, I'm inadvertently showing the interconnectedness of all things.”

Kimchi is being made in Naju, South Jeolla, at a family restaurant well-known for its preservation of local cooking techniques. Siu visited the family with Belgium chef Ae Jin Huys in order to learn how to make several types of kimchi. [YOLANTA SIU]

But she doesn’t try to control the narrative and rather lets her affection for the subject lead the camera.

“Photography for me is not about making images, or storytelling specifically, but about revealing myself and my relationships with people and places.”

She posts her work on her social media page under the handle @koreangrown. Her efforts also go toward supporting farmers looking for online representation or needing photos to apply for government funds. She occasionally writes for magazines and is working on publishing her own photo book about young farmers she met in Korea.

Monk Dukjae and his nephew Jinhwan in Gurye Country, South Jeolla. Siu describes that she was "particularly fascinated by the close relationship between Monk Dukjae and his nephew Jihwan. Instead of cleaving him from his family, his vows seem to have brought him closer to his many sisters, brother, and mother. I've continued to visit them over the years and last saw them in 2021 to get approval for including their story in my book." [YOLANTA SIU]

Siu’s journey in Korea began during her five-month homestay with a family in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi, through a program called WWOOF, or World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, right after she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley as an urban landscape design major in 2014.

She opted for a program that connected her with families living outside of Seoul because she thought she could gain a more holistic experience of Korea that way.

“At the time, people around the world didn’t know Korea as they do now,” she said. “I felt some shame for not knowing Korea as well as I did other Asian countries when I had a lot of Korean friends, so I came here wanting to learn about the culture.”

She took her camera with her and recorded her trip. Among her photos were pictures of a young couple who had escaped city life to start anew as farmers in rural Korea.

She wrote a short post about their story afterward and was amazed at the amount of responses she received.

“For the first time, I considered photography as a career choice,” she said.

Farmers Jeonghwa, right, and Shinbeom in Nonsan, South Chungcheong, practice natural farming, a method that Siu describes as a type of cultivation that "discourages human intervention as much as possible and recognizes the goodness of the plants we deem weeds." She adds, "They listen to the land and, in return, the land speaks to them." [YOLANTA SIU]

After a few months, she returned to California and got a job as a landscape designer. And as many study-abroad and homestay returnees can sympathize, the reality at home was a sharp contrast to Siu’s trip.

“There were days when I would work until 3 a.m. and then come back to work at 9 a.m., and it was like that for months at a time,” she said. “Now, looking back, I see that I wasn’t living like a human being and getting better as a person. I was just working. I didn’t care about what I was eating or my friends. There was just no time for anything except for this job.”

She ended up quitting after two years — a decision which she recalled was surprisingly easy after all that stress — and came back to Korea to further explore the lives of young farmers.

“I thought that with the text that I had written back in 2014, perhaps there was something interesting about what I found about Korea and that I could contribute to something meaningful.”

Kimchi in Naju, South Jeolla [YOLANTA SIU]

Her understanding and admiration for the gwinong life only grew as she observed more.

“I was inspired by how intentionally everyone here was eating and living. These people had given up their entire lifestyles in the city and consciously decided that they wanted to do something else. When I was working with them, every day was meaningful. Even though we weren’t making much money or changing the world, we felt very content. Their ways of living really motivated me to think more deeply about what I wanted in life.”

Siu came to the United States at the age of six, alone. She lived with her uncle’s family, and while she still maintains a good relationship with them, she recalled feeling lonely then, not quite knowing where she fit in.

“I had put pressures on myself to succeed and quickly live an independent life,” she said.

But since spending time with local farmers in Korea, her idea of success changed drastically, and frankly, she said, was “an eye-opener.”

“Being in the Korean countryside, you can really get that life is not just about money, jobs or social status but also about being vulnerable and truthful in order to be a part of a community,” Siu said.

Farmer Jeong Kwang-ha, left, and his son Won-ho at Flowerraining Farm in Nonsan, South Chungcheong. Siu describes them as "some of my closest friends" who taught her "how kindness and compassion help us grow into the people around us." [YOLANTA SIU]

And perhaps it is this personal touch that Siu has on the subject that makes her photos unique and authentic. She isn’t just behind the lens observing; she is part of the community.

Setting up her tent at her farmer friend’s cabin, dining at a chef friend’s restaurant and running into people on the subway and the streets, Siu, who claims she is a definite introvert, is surrounded by people.

It is through being vulnerable and giving herself wholly to that community that she is able to work.

“I don’t go places just to take pictures necessarily, but rather I go to see people who I have relationships with, and my photos are a result of our time together,” she said. “This isn’t just a project; it’s my life.”

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]