Trois Mille for Aerial

aerial
aerial

Aerial documents the Seoul Physical Education High School's gymnastic team, focusing on the students during their concentrated hours of training. "Through my work, I wanted to focus on the ‘process’ rather than a clear ‘result’," says author Ozooheon. The Korean photographer released Aerial in the spring of 2023 through Trade of Hearts, a Seoul-based independent book publisher. "That is why I decided to work with athletes as the subject for my images. I believed that by loosely agreeing on the time, method, guidelines, and conditions with the subjects, I could work on this project with ‘a long breath’.” The book's title -- prominently featured on the cover and back -- is set in Trois Mille. 

Aerial

Marc Rouault's futuristic grotesk is an homage to Roger Excoffon and a dynamic expression of what we call "internal contrast." The spark of this exciting visual style finds its most concentrated expression in the Black weights of Trois Mille, so we love that Aerial is set in Trois Mille Black Italic 15. Set in red over a body caught "still in motion," the title suggests both forward momentum and an anchor.

Aerial

Ozooheon expands further about the project:

“We have all heard the phrase “the beauty of incompleteness” somewhere. This has always been of huge interest for me since I was young. As a result, I have begun to look at ‘humanity’ as the subject of my portraiture work of documentary photography. ‘Aren’t all humans incomplete beings?’ This personal thought made me wonder what it would be like to photograph those in the ‘incomplete’ stage of life, particularly teenagers.”

“Quietly and calmly, I tried to capture the subjects and the burning passion within them. But, as it happened this year and last year [with COVID], I am always an outsider with an invisible wall in front of me. However, to build a relationship with them and for new things to happen, I needed to be deeply involved.

“The process of training is like pushing to the limit by using just one’s own body without any tools or equipment. It seems like a lonely place. Maybe it’s the moment when one confronts oneself. If I were the gymnast, I would think that I’m in conversation with the inner me when I am spinning, jumping, or doing repetitive actions. Gymnastics is a very lonely sport. The aspect of a lone fighter fighting itself makes me feel in awe. These athletes have specialized in one sport, gymnastics, and their bodies are trained in skills and techniques. And the images they create through their movements align with my work. The sport is definitely a work of art. The lines created by stretching, spinning, and jumping are so beautiful from those who have trained to the extreme.

“This is, at its core, a documentary that uses my preferred method of ‘long-breath storytelling.’ It’s centered around people and the behind-the-scenes stories they show. Every human story has an unfinished process and within that, I think there is definitely some beauty to explore. In the end, it seems like it is a story about imperfect humans. It’s about how beautiful it is for many imperfect humans to strive for completion in their unfinished process. Therefore, this project is about stories of imperfect humans.”

aerial

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