Seoul on cusp of modernization captured through photos of vanishing 'moon villages'

• Published date: 08 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

A black-and-white snapshot captures the facade of a dilapidated shack in southern Seoul's Apgujeong-dong, with a torn-out roof and walls that turn out to be nothing more than a mishmash of tarps and nailed wood boards of wildly varying sizes.

A few stranded household objects indicate that the tattered house was indeed occupied at one point ? white garments hung on a clothesline far back, coal briquettes littered on one side and a handcart that was likely a source of income.

The obvious visual clash between the derelict shack and rows of identical high-rise apartments looming in the background would catch the eye of any passerby.

That was exactly the case for student photographer Kim Jung-il in 1982.

Inspired by Eugene Atget, an acclaimed French photographer who dedicated his craft to documenting the urban landscape of 19th-century Paris before its disappearance to modernization, Kim went on a self-assigned mission to record Seoul's postwar terrain that had been transforming before his very eyes.

Sure enough, three years after his image was taken, the house and its surrounding barren land gave way to Hyundai's flagship department store, reshaping today's Apgujeong and the rest of the southern Gangnam District as the most affluent neighborhood in the country.

So, what was Seoul like on the cusp of modernization, early in its metamorphosis into a concrete jungle bursting with skyscrapers, high-tech subways and a population of almost 10 million?

Through the portraits of the city captured by documentarians like Kim and Lim Chung-eui, its neighborhoods that were razed and disappeared into history over the last 40 years have gained new life.

In their photographs, Seoul still manages to present itself as a forest of organically formed villages and twisted alleys that reveal an old way of living before homogeneous rows of apartment complexes took over.

"When I was taking photos of the parts of Seoul that were about to disappear, I knew that they would undergo transformation but never imagined it to be so profound and life-altering. We couldn't have possibly envisioned the cityscape and skyline we see today," Kim said in a joint interview with Lim held at the Seoul National University Museum of Art (SNUMoA) in southern Seoul.

The two are among the four artists who were invited to showcase their treasured photographic collections capturing the bygone days of the metropolis at the museum's recently wrapped-up group exhibition, "Myein, the Concave Lens in My Heart."

'Moon...