Jin-me Yoon, Souvenirs of the Self (Postcard Project), 1991 Virtual Museum of Canada
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By capturing the typical vacation imagery in the Postcard Project, the artist appropriates the format of the postcard to question the stories being told in them. The artist plays with the conventions of the postcard, right down to the typical imagery, and highlights her own presence in the photos by inserting herself in typical tourist poses. The image represented here is of six of the postcards at the top of the image, with the details from the back of the postcard on the bottom.

Jin-me Yoon, Souvenirs of the Self (Postcard Project), 1991

Images in the Series:In this stereotypical tourist pose, the artist stands full view in front of a Lake Louise with picture-perfect mountains in the background, reminiscent of popular postcards of the Rockies.The artist stands in the Banff Park Museum beside a stuffed beaver and other artifacts in display cases. The artist plays with the typical conventions of the postcard by inserting herself into the image, where there would typically be no human presence.The artist poses with a group of elderly tourists in front of their tour bus. A typical souvenir, the group photo is a favourite image to remember the group of people a tourist would travel with.By capturing the typical vacation imagery in the Postcard Project, the artist appropriates the format of the postcard to question the stories being told in them. The artist plays with the conventions of the postcard, right down to the typical imagery, and highlights her own presence in the photos by inserting herself in typical tourist poses. The image represented here is of six of the postcards at the top of the image, with the details from the back of the postcard on the bottom.This image is of a young Asian child wearing an orange braided pigtail wig. The red pigtails represent the cultural myth of PEI - Anne of Green Gables - sold in many tourist shops in PEI.Two Women, the artist and a red-headed woman, sit in front of a statue of Anne of Green Gables, a fictional character created by Lucy Maude Montgomery, now a symbol of PEI.A woman with a baby overlooks the coastal landscape of Prince Edward Island.The artist stands facing a War Memorial in Charlottetown. Instead of the stereotypical tourist photo where the tourist poses in front of the memorial, the artist stands facing the monument, and not the camera.In this series of photographs, Yoon explores the cultural myths of Prince Edward Island, where tourism is a primary industry. In this image, the artist stands in a farmer's field with deep red soil, presumably a field of potatoes, a main export from Prince Edward Island. She stands with a man and young child, representing a family, their backs facing us.In this image, two people stand looking out over a golf course, their backs to us. The artists inserts herself into the image, using stereotypical tourist photos to examine the truth and lies behind tourist representations of place. Here, she stands beside an Aboriginal man, overlooking a golf course. Once belonging to First Nations Peoples, the land is now used as a tourist destination for commercial gain.

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