In 2024 I visited South Korea, where I stayed in its two largest cities — the capital, Seoul, and the coastal Busan — and stopped in Beijing on the way back.
The street life of these places became the basis of my series.
Seoul is an enormous city where tradition sits next to urban chaos, where the streets pulse with life and the neon signs of cafés and restaurants create the feeling of an endless evening.
It was there that I first found myself at a giant flea market that takes up an entire block.
I was struck by how full of contrast everyday life in Korea is: against the backdrop of modern buildings you see young women in traditional hanbok walking calmly down the street.
That visual rift between the past and the present became the leitmotif of my cycle.
Gongpyeong-dong is an old quarter in central Seoul, wedged between office towers. Under the red awning it keeps its own life: people step in to eat standing, still in their work clothes.
What mattered to me was catching that light — warm, market light that cuts the figures out of the evening street.
