Heayeon Yoon | New York

New York Photographer Heayeon Yoon: Inedible Series

"One Friday afternoon in April 2007, I saw a dead body from my office window at the Empire State Building’s 56th floor. A man who was a lawyer jumped from his office. Thereafter, I wasn’t able to erase the scene from my head.

This memory became my motivation. It makes me think about the feeling of being disconnected and isolated from other people and also makes me consider my relationships with others. The World Health Organization reports, in the year 2000, approximately one million people died from suicide. This is the equivalent to one death every 40 seconds. I don’t know the reasons why people kill themselves, but when someone stands on the edge of this precipice and they cannot be reached or saved by others, which makes me feel heavy-hearted.

This photographic project is meant to express my interpretation of the desolate feelings of someone who gives up their own life. To depict my concept I hung the flower with threads and captured their movement or submerged flowers under water and let them decay. Paradoxically, most of my images are colorful and vivid against this heavy concept. These photographs reflect my feeling when I saw a man down on the cement floor under a brilliant blue sky." - Heayeon Yoon