Swan Moon’s Swan Moon
Swan Moon’s Swan Moon is a diaristic portrait of youth, identity, and performance set against the faded glamour of 1990s Los Angeles. Swan Moon revisits her teenage years as a Korean American growing up in the cultural shadow of Hollywood— where cinema’s myths loomed large and personal history blurred with fantasy.
The photographs echo mid-century domesticity— gestures borrowed from the 1950s and ’60s— but subverted through the awareness and often overwrought angst of the 1990s. Sexuality here is present but subdued, expressed with a tenderness that would soon be obliterated by the onset of the Internet’s rise. There’s humor, style and an earnest make-believe that is refreshing in light of today’s hyper self-awareness and image saturation.
Designed with a nod to Hollywood’s silver screen, Swan Moon’s Swan Moon includes a curated soundtrack and character credits at the book’s conclusion. An afterword by the esteemed writer Chris Kraus brings clarity and context to Moon’s love letter to a nostalgic Los Angeles—her version of the city and its youthful inhabitants that feels both deeply personal and entirely lost to time.
TBW Books, 2025
