Born in 1983, I have lived and built my career as a photographer in Seoul, Korea, with BFA degree in photography from Seoul Institute of the Art and Chung-Ang University (earned in 2005 and 2010 each), and master’s degree from the graduate school of Chung-Ang (earned in 2016).
I was born in a family residing in an apartment complex in downtown Seoul, and have spent more than 30years of my life in the same town and the same city. When I was 20, a broad scaled-reconstruction proceeded in the town, making me a witness of the change of the city as a result of my home town disappearing. In the process of the observation, I found out that there’s some excluded and segmented space that the people in the city can never easily recognize. When working, I walk into the space which is hidden by the steel fences and cannot be seen by the people who live in it, such as redevelopment area or reconstruction sites of new town. There, I look for the scenes of changing urban area, and record the scenes as a form of photos, directly intervening the scenes.
As a photographer, I was awarded the 5th Daegu International Photo Biennale-The Top Four 2014 Portfolio Award and The 36th Joongang Fine Arts Prize in 2014, and the 6th SKOPF (Sangsangmadang Korean Photographer’s Fellowship) Award and the 14th SAJINBIPYONG Award in 2013. Also I have held multiple solo exhibitions including Reconstruction Site, SPACEONEWWALL, Seoul, Korea (2016) and participated in the joint exhibitions such as Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto, Canada (2015), Intro at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea (2015) and Ruins at Korean cultural center shanghai, Shanghai, China (2015) and Site and Place (Duet exhibition) at Doosan Gallery, New York, US (2014) and New Generation at Gallery Image, Aarhus, Denmark (2014).
