Daesung Lee, The Story of his Mother Through his Lens 

Photographer Daesung Lee captures the resilient spirit of his Korean mother through a moving photographic series.

Based in France for over two decades, Daesung Lee established his international reputation by documenting the profound impacts of environmental and social change. His work often examines how humans adapt to fragile landscapes. However, he recently shifted his focus inward. The Korean artist explores the life of his mother to understand the personal history he once overlooked. This emotional project, Nirvana, portrays the harsh realities faced by Korean women of her generation. Through his camera, Lee reveals her resilience, sorrow, and hidden dreams.

IRK: Daesung, before you started such an intimate project, what motivated you to shift your focus from your usual subjects to your own mother?

Daesung Lee: Around that time, several of my longtime friends passed away unexpectedly. Those sudden, unprepared goodbyes changed the way I looked at life. I started to think that life is really a journey toward death.

Once I realized that, it became very clear to me how I wanted to spend the time I have left. I had been living abroad for more than twenty years and settled in France, but during all that time I had hardly spent any meaningful time with my parents. So I decided to stay with them for a few months in my home country.

We talked about everything. From childhood memories to the little time we have left, and even about death. One day, I asked my mother a question:

“If there is such a thing as a next life, what kind of life would you want to live?”

But her answer surprised me.

“I never want to be born again.”

This project began with that answer.

The truth is, I knew very little about my mother’s life, and she rarely spoke about it herself.

IRK: The title of your series, “Nirvana,” refers to the Buddhist liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. Why did you choose this specific concept to illustrate your mother’s life story?

Daesung Lee: In Buddhism, people often understand life as suffering. Buddhists call liberation from this cycle of suffering nirvana.

When I think back to my childhood, I remember my mother and many women of her generation carrying out endless labor, facing discrimination, and experiencing the violence that was so common within the home.

When I heard my mother’s answer, I understood it differently. More than anything, I found myself wishing that she could finally be free from the karma of this world. That she could be liberated from all the suffering she had carried throughout her life.

IRK: Through Nirvana, have you finally succeeded in revealing the woman hidden beneath the weight of her “ten hands” and the uniformity of her perms. The person she was beforesimply becoming « a mother » ?

Daesung Lee: My mother once reflected on her life and said that she never really had strong academic achievements or big ambitions. I sometimes think that perhaps society never gave her the chance to discover herself.

Back then, it was a society where the roles of men and women were strictly divided. What women could or could not do was already defined by social norms.

Women’s participation in society was very limited. Most girls would finish middle or high school, take on brief, simple jobs for a while, and then get married and dedicate themselves to housework. My mother followed that same path. She got married and started a family.

In particular, people considered childbirth a crucial part of family life. Becoming a mother meant not only having children, but also continuing a family line. In that sense, motherhood played a central role in social reproduction.

From that perspective, becoming a mother was also a form of sacrifice within that system. It was a time when women were expected, even pressured, to give birth to sons in order to continue the family name.

In that sense, they ended up living their entire lives as beings who served and sacrificed for others.

IRK: Furthermore, your mother once confessed: “If I were a butterfly in a dream, I would have just flown away.” How has this poignant desire for escape altered your perspective on her years of sacrifice?

Daesung Lee: In 1970s Korea, it was common for three generations to live under one roof. In that context, women were responsible for everything. Preparing meals for the entire family, doing the laundry, and cleaning the house.

In our family alone, including my sister and me, there were eleven people living together. Taking care of such a large household was entirely my mother’s responsibility. She often said that she still remembers how overwhelming it was, especially when she was pregnant and had to manage all of that at the same time.

It was also a time of poverty, when food was always not enough for everyone. My mother told me that even during her pregnancies, she never realy had the chance to eat what she wanted.

I grew up watching not only my mother, but also my aunts as they married and faced similar struggles. I remember feeling a deep sense of compassion toward them.

In Korea, there is a belief about the “karma of marriage,” where people say that even enemies from a past life may meet again as husband and wife in this life.

In a way, it is a narrative that connects one’s suffering in this life to a past life, offering a way to endure hardship and comfort oneself.

Sometimes I wonder if my mother spent her entire life waiting for this life to pass. Perhaps even, in some sense, waiting for death.

IRK: Among all the images in the project, is there one photograph in particular that still makes you pause or forces you to take an emotional step back?

Daesung Lee: I have never actually seen my mother’s real hairstyle.From the moment I was born, she already wore a perm, and she still goes to the hair salon for it.

One day, I accidentally came across a photograph of her with long, straight hair. That image made me imagine her youth before marriage. Her dreams, her girlhood, and the life she might have wanted for herself.

I found myself wondering: what kind of life did she want to live back then? Did she ever imagine that such a difficult life was waiting for her? And if she had never gotten married, what kind of life would she be living now?

In that sense, that photograph of her before marriage became the most striking image for me.

IRK: You noted that your mother’s pursuit of the saxophone was her first hobby at age 70. If you were to write an alternative story for her, what kind of person would she have become had she been born in a different time or place?

Daesung Lee: As I began this project, I had the opportunity to observe my mother more closely over a long period of time. She has worked all her life, and even now, despite her age and fatigue, she moves with incredible energy and diligence

One day, I told her about Yayoi Kusama. I said, “You know she makes a lot of money just by painting dots on pumpkins?” She looked at me and said, “Oh, that? I could do that too.”

Then she went to the garden, brought back a pumpkin, and started painting dots on it. After finishing, she asked me, “So? Don’t you think I’m good at making dots too?”

My mother has always had very skilled hands. When I was young, she would knit sweaters for us by hand during the winter. She also has a strong sense of curiosity and experimentation. She enjoys trying out new recipes and inventing new kinds of food, and she still does so today.

I am convinced that if she had had different opportunities in life, she might have worked in something related to art.

She once told me that she listened to The Beatles on the radio when she was young. In a way, she was listening to the same music as people in the West at the same time, yet living a completely different life.

I sometimes imagine what her youth might have been like if she had been born in a Western country instead of Korea.

IRK: Finally, when you look back on Nirvana years from now, what do you hope people will remember most about the woman you captured in these images ?

Daesung Lee: Through this series, I am not trying to speak only about the hardship of their lives. The real question for me is how we choose to look at our lives.

Do we end a tragic life with tragic thoughts ? Or do we transform it into something else, something more positive? I see this as a question of attitude toward life itself.

I wanted to spend time doing things with my mother while she is still healthy. Of course, I am fully aware that we do not have much time left. Still, I hoped that even at the moment of our parting, we could remember the absurd little projects we shared and maybe laugh together as we say goodbye.

I no longer live for the future. In a sense, I live toward death. But this way of thinking actually frees me from false desires. When you fully face death, what truly matters in the present becomes much clearer.

Finally, I sometimes wonder whether we are too quick to define and categorize things as positive or negative. I hope the viewer understands that these meanings are not fixed. They come more from our state of mind than from the things themselves.