Elephant and Castle (2018) is a visual investigation of London property development.
Upon being prompted to create a body of work in a foreign city, under the theme of Responding to the City, I followed a visual marker immediately recognizable: cranes along the skylines.
I spent my childhood witnessing the rapid transformation of the urban landscape and the livelihood of the people in it. My family lived on the fringe of the ever-expanding city of Seoul, where old neighborhoods made of shacks and narrow alleys would give way to residential complexes and skyscrapers almost overnight. I was yet to grasp how all the disappearances and displacements I thus experienced with angst and fascination fueled the economy for years to come.
Elephant and Castle explores this sense of affinity and ambiguity towards the most expensive development in London’s history. Its particular focus is exposing the relentless push of the vision of the city as an object of investment, aided by delirious computer-generated imageries brazenly pasted across streets, as the public walks in and out of the fantasy world of “the prestigious urban lifestyle.”
Elephant and Castle book dummy was shortlisted for Kassel Dummy Book Award 2018.