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www.groovekorea.com / January 2015 70 J u a n i t a H o n g f i g H t s t H r o u g H t H e f e a r o f f a i l u r e Story by Josh Doyle / Photography courtesy of Juanita Hong J uanita Hong is a Brazilian-born Korean photographer who grew up in the Unit- ed States. She first got her hands on a camera at age 9, after her parents recognized her artistic talents. Growing up, she took classes in ceramics, pot- tery, painting, drawing and pretty much any creative pursuit going. Now she’s working on a photography project called Geography of Youth in which, over the course of 30 days, photographers from around the world interviewed and photographed one millennial every day. Groove Korea: What was the goal of your Geography of Youth project? Juanita Hong: For me, the goal was to try and get different people from different backgrounds, and to show that we’re all the same. Geography of Youth is about millennials; it’s about people from all different parts of the world with different backgrounds and different issues in their lives, all around the same age. We’re all struggling; we’re all trying to do some- thing with our lives. I think that’s why people like the project — because they look at these photographs and interviews, and they realize, “This person is on the other side of the world, but I can totally relate to them.” How did you fnd the people that you photographed and inter- viewed? Did you know them? Were they random? It was kind of a mix. Some of them I knew already, and then there were some random people I just met on the street. There were a lot of people who contacted me and wanted to be a part of it, so I photographed those people as well. I really wanted to get a variety of people. I wanted to represent gay couples, military officers, foreigners and people outside the city (and) in the city. I just wanted different types of people from different backgrounds to show that we’re all different types of people, but at the end of the day we all have the same dreams, we all have the same fears, and we’re just trying to make it. geography of youth Edited by Emilee Jennings (emilee@groovekorea.com) muSIC & ARTS