Demolition Site

The Space between Creation and Destruction. “Topos koinos,” or the shared common space, is in danger of extinction. Cities are only functioning as indicators of economic growth or political images, losing their sense of place as a habitat, which used to be their essence. People have hide their place of living inside thin steel fences, and have changed it into the functional urban space which guarantees economic benefits earned from the extravagant development plan. I walked into the hidden space over the steel fences that cannot be recognized by the people who live in it, such as redevelopment area or reconstruction sites of new town. There, I looked for the scenes of urbanization, and recorded the scenes as a form of photos, directly intervening the scenes. <Demolition Site> is the series of the photos on those sites inside the steel fences. For the work of <Demolition Site>, I sneaked into a building that was scheduled to be torn down, painted a room in the building red, and photographed the scene. After the demolition, I revisited the fallen building, searching for the traces of the red paint. Documenting the red walls broken down and becoming smaller and smaller pieces, I recorded and chased after the change of the surroundings and the fate of the red room that would become anonymous pieces of concrete and disappear into the void in the end. I found the inspiration of the work of <Demolition Site> (2013-2015) in my personal experience of losing my childhood home in the process of urban redevelopment. Under the urban redevelopment, which is quite common in Korea, low-rise apartment complexes are demolished and replaced by high-rise dwellings with high density of population, strategically responding to the rapid growth of population and the urbanization. Painting the room is a gesture of commemorating the lives once occupying the space; the use of red symbolizes the hearth and heart of a home—something intangible yet essential that disappears along with these apartments.