DRIVE Magazine
For my graduate exhibition project, I was asked to create an editorial that contained my voice.
With my family members living all over the world, my childhood friends and friends I have met in Korea have become a vital part of my life. I decided to explore the importance of friendship by understanding the different types and forms of friendship. The editor’s(me) interaction with the people that appear on the pages had to be genuine, intimate, and versatile like its topic, “friendship”.
Volume 1: <Friendship> is filled with heartfelt contents that are personal, informational, and interactive.
Photos, thoughtful conversations, and essays that rely on moments and spontaneity, but contain longevity.
Nothing more straight-forward than the main theme itself. I hoped to answer the question, “What drives you?” in this magazine that is full of life.
1) “How would you define friendship?”
2) “Is there a special moment or conversation that you had with your friend/s or a memory you love that you want to share with me?”
3) “What does your friend mean to you?”
Every single answer blew me away because of how genuine and personal they were. I turned the answers from the survey into a letter format to make the readers feel like they are opening a letter from their close friend.
Interviewees:
1) Jin Youn: Achim Magazine Editor-in-Chief
2) Paolo Raeli: Italian-Danish photographer known for taking breath-taking photos of his friends.
3) Yunjung Kim: Author and head of a children’s book publisher, YUN Edition.
I asked my best friend to write an essay about friendship. She talked about something that happened which was very minuscule yet the ultimate definition of friendship. Here’s the full script.
One evening in May, I joined a group of friends for dinner and drinks at a college campus that was hosting its annual spring music festival. That’s right, festival season was upon us and I was determined to make the most of the soiree - never mind that I had left my own campus two years ago.
One joining member was my best friend friend of 11 years. Our relationship is one that has endured puberty, two international moves, and countless adventures. If friendship is defined by durability, she is my best friend three times over.
Friendship. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines true friendship as philia, the Greek word for mutual attraction - attachment, the highest form of love, a key ingredient to achieving true happiness. Altruistic friendship is central in the mission of living a well-meaning and fulfilling life. Aristotle believed that relationships based solely the joy of companionship and mutual respect were connected to achieving the highest form of virtue. “Without friends,” the philosophy giant explains, “no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”
The philosophy of friendship Nichomachean Ethics has undergone intense scrutiny throughout the years, though perhaps none so drastic as that of the modern century. The pandemic alone has caused a revolution in the criterion of a normal friendscape, raising important questions such as: is friendship longevity really so important? Is it worth reviving a friendship that has undergone a passive death? What exactly does friendship mean to us now?
The last question hits home. A year out of school and into the workforce, the more I hear friendship being described as an investment of time and energy. A transactional relationship with careful measurements. A give-and-take with little to no leftovers. “Make sure to keep your friendship circle small,” an alumni once advised me during my sophomore year of college, “those wedding registries really do add up.”
Coupled with the force of the pandemic, I see this transformation manifest in my own relationships. Friendships is a matter of scheduling, canceling, and adjusting dates on a calendar. “We should catch up,” slips out as naturally as “let’s get dinner sometime soon,” Even with my best friends.
Sometimes, life gets in way of relationships. All you can do is make it work to the best of your ability. That Friday night at the music festival, my best friend and I did just that. The two of us quickly got to work updating each other on the ins and outs of our lives.
As I often did in the past, I performed a dramatic re-telling of the perils of an entry-level employee navigating the corporate jungle for her. As she listened, she sniffled - and then started to cry. Surprised by the sudden tears, I laughed (as you do when close friends show their soft side). I passed her a few napkins. She wiped her face and passed her tears off as a mark of insanity from her brutal mid-term schedule over the past week. “I’m just upset that that would happen to you,” she said. “You deserve so much more than that.”
We shared another (머쓱) laugh. Then, I began to cry.
True friendship is the gift of vulnerability. It allows you to access parts of yourself that would otherwise lay dormant. A glimpse into the True Self. Bonding you to the essence of your very being. Spending Friday night at a pocha(Korean pub), watching someone cry in your stead.
Life is a struggle made beautiful by sharing the burden with those around you. After all, who are we if not the relationships that we live through?