ARGUS PAUL
  • Photography
    • Current >
      • Where Do We
    • Completed Works >
      • Fare Adjustment
      • A DREAM TO FIGHT FOR
      • How to Draw a Line
      • Reflections Inside The Seoul Metro
      • Stage Left
      • This Is Not an Exit
      • School Memories: The Loss in Danwon High
      • Heartfelt Welcome
      • Losing Face
      • Wrestling In The Streets Of Seoul
  • Erasure Poetry
  • Articles / Interviews / Features
    • LENSCRATCH | Argus Paul Estabrook: Half Eye, Half I
    • UP Photographers | Interview with Argus Paul Estabrook
    • Life Framer Journal | Looking Out and In With ARGUS PAUL ESTABROOK
    • LensCulture Street Photography Awards 2021 | Reflections Inside the Seoul Metro
    • ‘What life is about’: LensCulture street photography awards – in pictures
    • New narratives: BJP International Photography 2021 Award Winners revealed
    • The Phoblographer | Argus Estabrook Finds Stories Worth Telling by Using Intimacy
    • The Magnum and LensCulture Photography Awards 2017 Winners
    • The Magnum and LensCulture Photography Awards 2017 | Losing Face: Inside the Fall of South Korea’s President
    • Musée Magazine | Weekend Portfolio: Argus Paul Estabrook
    • 2018 Critical Mass Top 50
    • 2017 Critical Mass Top 50
    • PDN Emerging Photographer | Vol. 10, No. 1
    • CRITIC’S VIEW: Politics, Strangers & Art Not to Miss at Spring/Break 2018
  • Contact
  • CV
  • Photography
    • Current >
      • Where Do We
    • Completed Works >
      • Fare Adjustment
      • A DREAM TO FIGHT FOR
      • How to Draw a Line
      • Reflections Inside The Seoul Metro
      • Stage Left
      • This Is Not an Exit
      • School Memories: The Loss in Danwon High
      • Heartfelt Welcome
      • Losing Face
      • Wrestling In The Streets Of Seoul
  • Erasure Poetry
  • Articles / Interviews / Features
    • LENSCRATCH | Argus Paul Estabrook: Half Eye, Half I
    • UP Photographers | Interview with Argus Paul Estabrook
    • Life Framer Journal | Looking Out and In With ARGUS PAUL ESTABROOK
    • LensCulture Street Photography Awards 2021 | Reflections Inside the Seoul Metro
    • ‘What life is about’: LensCulture street photography awards – in pictures
    • New narratives: BJP International Photography 2021 Award Winners revealed
    • The Phoblographer | Argus Estabrook Finds Stories Worth Telling by Using Intimacy
    • The Magnum and LensCulture Photography Awards 2017 Winners
    • The Magnum and LensCulture Photography Awards 2017 | Losing Face: Inside the Fall of South Korea’s President
    • Musée Magazine | Weekend Portfolio: Argus Paul Estabrook
    • 2018 Critical Mass Top 50
    • 2017 Critical Mass Top 50
    • PDN Emerging Photographer | Vol. 10, No. 1
    • CRITIC’S VIEW: Politics, Strangers & Art Not to Miss at Spring/Break 2018
  • Contact
  • CV
ARGUS PAUL

A Cos’ality Of Play


Under the daily hum of academic pressures, plastic surgery advertisements, and fast food chains, a growing subculture of cosplay has taken root on the outskirts of Gangnam, South Korea. Meeting usually one weekend every month at convention centers in Yangjae or Hangyeoul, Korean youth have seemingly found a way to escape the pressures of societal perfection by transforming into fictional characters they admire.

They mostly meet and prepare in metro stations closest to the chosen venue, taking them over almost completely in a sea of cosmetic boxes and costumes. Some spend hours applying make-up there, even going as far as hiring make-up artists to help them become anime princesses. Others simply wear used uniforms found in military surplus stores to play war with their friends. Cross-dressing is also extremely popular. For these few hours each month, they are welcomed into a community where they can escape into fantasy.

But can escape be fully realized in a society that places such a high value in personal appearance and consumerism? In this urban playground where fantasy lives are acted upon, they must still contended with the reality of Korean hierarchical values. Onlookers still see them amidst a landscape saturated in all manner of advertisements. With so much product placement imposing itself upon the landscape, is their escape not a product itself?
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The aim of my work is to examine how these subjects wish to be perceived, while being in an environment that they cannot change or remove. I use multiple exposures as a technique to transpose subject and environment together. The resulting portraiture is one merged between fantasy and reality: A Cos’ality Of Play.

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Upon A Star
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Soldiers Of Fortune
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A Sight For
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Big Sale
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A Hand In
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Off The Wall
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Happy Birthday 1,600
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Fighting Fits
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Strike A
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Eyes Four Use