The Korean Herald

20 June, 2014 – 19:40

Larger-than-life photographs of Jejudo Island’s iconic female divers in wetsuits hang on the walls of the second and basement floor spaces of POSCO Art Museum on Tehran-ro in southern Seoul, the women’s weathered faces bearing witness to a lifetime of struggles with the sea. The photographs are part of “Mother in the Sea, Haenyeo,” an exhibition of 165 works by celebrated photographer Joon Choi, running through July 3.

Choi captures the faraway look in the eyes of an aged diver just out of the water, her exertion apparent in the deep furrows of her face. He catches yet another haenyeo, or jamsu as the women divers are also called, in a moment of dance, her lean body slightly angled, her hands holding up her flippers in a seemingly joyful, rhythmic movement.

The occasional landscapes of Jejudo Island interspersed among the portraits capture the wind blowing through a field of grass, the quiet calm of a steely gray sea before a storm ― raw elements of nature that these special women endure every day.