PROJECTS Beauty Recovery Room, Draw On Me, It Will Hurt A Little, Casting Call, Somewhere on the Path, Cry

INSTAGRAM @jiyeo

FASHION Lovers Monday

Women in Seoul, photographed directly after undergoing plastic surgery. These are the hours and days spent in the recovery rooms that the industry does not show.

South Korea has the highest per-capita rate of cosmetic surgery in the world. Where Western surgery culture centers on the body, the Korean ideal focuses on the face: eyes made bigger, cheekbones and jawlines minimized, noses made higher and narrower. The series shows the physical cost of an ever-changing ideal of beauty, the visual residue of that sacrifice.

Featured in The Guardian, BBC, The Washington Post, LA Times, National Geographic, NPR, Wired, and others.

Seoul, South Korea · 2008–2014

Beauty Recovery Room — 23 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2008 — 23 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2008

Beauty Recovery Room — 26 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2012 — 26 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2012

Beauty Recovery Room — 36 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2008 — 36 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2008

Beauty Recovery Room — 22 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2009 — 22 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2009

Beauty Recovery Room — 25 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2009 — 25 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2009

Beauty Recovery Room — 34 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2010 — 34 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2010

Beauty Recovery Room — 23 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2011 — 23 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2011

Beauty Recovery Room — 34 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2008 — 34 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2008

Beauty Recovery Room — 29 years old, Los Angeles, 2014 — 29 years old, Los Angeles, 2014

Beauty Recovery Room — 25 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2014 — 25 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2014

Beauty Recovery Room — 30 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2014 — 30 years old, Seoul, South Korea, 2014

Beauty Recovery Room2008–2014