THE PINK AND BLUE PROJECT
THE PINK AND BLUE PROJECT
CREDITS
The Korean photographer Jeongmee Yoon (1969) got inspired for her Pink and Blue project by her own daughter. ”My six-year-old daughter loves pink. She wants to wear only pink clothes and only own pink toys and objects.” She decided to photograph American and South Korean toddlers surrounded by their favourite possessions.
The boys were soon to be surrounded by the colour blue, the girls by the colour pink. Pink has come to symbolize femininity and sweetness, while blue stands for masculinity and strength: these gender norms are deeply embedded in our society. The funny thing is, before World War II, blue was not particularly linked to boys and pink not linked to girls. In fact, the opposite was true: delicate blue was for girls and pink for boys, since this colour was a ‘more decided and strong colour.’
Yoon’s project is truly confronting and shows perfectly the ”extent to which children and their parents, knowingly or unknowingly, are influenced by advertising and popular culture.”
