My project focuses on the residents of Koreatown, Los Angeles: those who have spent their entire lives, just as my parents have, working to build a better life for themselves and their family. With this project, I aim to capture stories often overlooked through my perspective as a child of immigrants.
Recognizing invisibility is a major concept within my photographs: an elderly woman resting after a long day of grocery shopping, or even the silence amongst strangers walking past each other. I love capturing everyday, mundane moments and finding meaning within them.
I look for a certain quietude within my work–a single moment in time that should be acknowledged–because no one looks twice at a pigeon picking at a rotting apple or a woman shouting in the middle of a street. I try to recognize what often goes unrecognized: the stories lying underneath the seemingly mundane, the stories that appreciate and commemorate the lives of Koreatown
Lucy Hwang (she/her) is a Korean-American photographer from Koreatown, Los Angeles. Through the Las Fotos Project and Koreatown Storytelling Program, she has learned to be reflective of her community’s stories, hoping to capture each one through a seemingly mundane lens.
Lucy joined Las Fotos Project in the spring of 2022 to expand her artistic interests, and has learned to utilize photography as an avenue of storytelling through her perspective. She loves going on photo walks around her neighborhood to capture images ranging from the remnants of her old cram school, to an accumulation of garbage on the intersection of Vermont and Wilshire.
Photography has helped Lucy explore her boundaries of comfort in the most exciting way. She plans to continue shooting beyond this semester, as she’ll be visiting Seoul, South Korea for the first time this summer to capture through photography the story of her mother’s hometown and family.
This fall, Lucy will be attending Carnegie Mellon University as a first-year student studying economics.
Photo by @fotosbykimberly on Instagram