A familiar rule, seen in a child’s room
“Pink is for girls, blue is for boys” may sound like a simple preference, but it is also a gender stereotype (a fixed expectation about what girls or boys should like). Yoon Jung-mi’s photographs make that rule visible: one child sits surrounded by pink objects, while another is framed by a room full of blue.
The images invite viewers to look beyond the colors themselves. A room full of toys, clothes, books, and everyday objects can seem to tell us who a child is. But the photographs also ask a more open question: are these preferences natural and permanent, or do they change as children grow?
The project’s central idea is simple: no color belongs exclusively to girls or boys, and a child’s tastes need not fit a ready-made category.
A project that began at home
Yoon’s Pink & Blue Project began in 2005, prompted by her daughter’s strong interest in pink and her habit of choosing pink toys. What started as an observation within one family gradually became a wider photographic inquiry into the relationship between people and the things they own.
The project attracted international attention and was exhibited in more than 100 locations around the world over 15 years. Its appeal lies partly in the recognition that color-based assumptions appear in many societies. A pink aisle in a toy store or a blue section in a children’s clothing department can make those assumptions feel ordinary, even though they are cultural habits rather than rules of nature.
The photographs also examine consumer culture (the way buying and owning goods shape daily life and identity). Children’s belongings are not merely background decoration. The objects surrounding each child suggest what is offered to them, what they choose, and how personal preferences can be shaped by family, advertising, shops, and wider social expectations.
The photographs show that taste can change
The picture book Hello? My Pink Blue, written by So Eon and published in 2021, brings together photographs made between 2006 and 2018. Some children were photographed again after three, six, or even twelve years. Seeing the same person at different ages turns the book into a record of change rather than a single snapshot of identity.
One especially striking sequence follows a girl named Sangyu. In a 2006 photograph, her room is dominated by pink. By 2009, blue objects have become prominent. In a later image from 2015, many colors appear, while the room itself has more open space and fewer objects crowding the frame.
That progression does not suggest that one color is better than another. Instead, it shows how a child’s interests can shift, widen, and become less easy to summarize. A room that once seemed to announce a single preference can later reveal a more varied and individual sense of style.
- At first: pink fills much of Sangyu’s room.
- Three years later: blue objects have taken on a larger role.
- Six years after that: a wider range of colors appears, alongside noticeably more empty space.
The sequence offers a gentle alternative to labeling children by what they like. A preference can be meaningful without defining a person forever—much like a favorite game or outfit can change as someone grows.
How composition makes the objects speak
Yoon photographed the scenes with a medium-format camera (a camera that uses a larger image area to capture fine detail) and used square frames. The format gives the rooms a contained, almost stage-like quality: the child and the objects are held together in one carefully arranged picture.
The artist reportedly spent more than five hours arranging the objects in a scene. Children often appear near the center or toward the back of the image, while their belongings fill much of the space around them. Their expressions are usually restrained, drawing attention not only to the child but also to the things they possess and the desires those things may represent.
Lighting was arranged to spread evenly across the small rooms. As a result, objects are clearly visible rather than disappearing into shadow. Toys, clothes, and other possessions can be examined almost as closely as the person in the photograph. This balance encourages viewers to consider how identity is communicated not only through appearance, but also through the things people collect and keep.
A picture book told through photographs
Picture books made entirely from photographs are relatively uncommon. Selecting a small number of images from thousands and arranging them into a coherent sequence is difficult: each photograph has to work on its own while also contributing to the larger story.
Photography offers a particular kind of documentary realism (the feeling that an image records something that existed in the real world). A staged photograph may be carefully constructed, but it still shows actual people and objects. Its fixed instant can make a child’s room feel immediate, while the passage of years between images makes change visible in a way a single portrait cannot.
The written text in Hello? My Pink Blue extends the photographs’ meaning. Together, words and images guide readers from the familiar pink-and-blue divide toward a broader idea: children can discover colors, objects, and interests that feel like their own. The book’s strength is not that it replaces one prescribed taste with another, but that it leaves room for many possibilities.
Why the project still matters
Color labels are often encountered early—in toys, clothing, birthday decorations, and the way adults describe children’s choices. Repeated often enough, these cues can make a social convention seem like a natural fact. The photographs create a pause in that process, asking viewers to notice how such expectations are built and how easily they can change.
The project also offers a useful reminder for adults choosing gifts or setting up a child’s room: a child does not need to be guided toward a “correct” palette. A pink toy can be enjoyed by a boy, a blue room by a girl, and a collection of many colors by anyone. The larger point is the freedom to explore rather than the need to prove a particular idea about gender.
The photographs do not tell children what to like. They make space for children to find out what they like for themselves.
The book’s long view—returning to the same people over time—makes that message especially persuasive. Instead of treating childhood preferences as fixed labels, it presents them as part of a story that continues to unfold.
An invitation to look closely
The photographs reward slow viewing. Readers can notice how the same child’s surroundings change, compare the objects placed in the frame, and consider what is absent as well as what is present. In that sense, the book is both a story about growing up and an introduction to how photographs can shape what we notice.
A related exhibition at the Hyundai Children’s Book Museum in Pangyo was scheduled to run through November 1, 2026, offering visitors a chance to explore photographic images and the ideas behind them. Whether encountered in a gallery or on the page, Yoon’s project leaves viewers with a question that reaches beyond color: when we look at a child, are we seeing the person—or the expectations we have learned to place around them?
