Tim Franco 6/19/25 Tim Franco 6/19/25

House of Remnants - New Project at Ulsan Art Fair

Last month, I ventured into a new direction, creating a body of work that departs slightly from my usual approach. Centered on a neighborhood in Seoul undergoing transformation, the project began as a photographic exploration but gradually evolved into something more immersive. The result is a new series that I had the pleasure of exhibiting at the Ulsan Art Fair. Here is a presentation

In central Seoul, a neighborhood disappears. Bogwang-dong, once filled with daily activity, is now marked by empty homes, abandoned rooms, and traces of lives once lived. This photographic series documents both the physical demolition and the subtle marks left behind.

Through black-and-white images and recovered materials, the work reflects on what it means for a city to dismantle its past in pursuit of progress. Each photograph acts as an afterimage (잔영) — a trace of something gone, yet still present.

These images will later be transferred onto debris collected from the site — wood, glass, tile — forming objects that carry both visual and physical remnants of the place.

In a city constantly rebuilding, the project asks: what is left behind when everything changes?

The presence of Seoul’s past may not always be visible, but it lingers — in the spaces, the silence, and the structures that once held life.

The project was displayed at the Ulan Art Fair in 2025

Tim Franco 6/25/14 Tim Franco 6/25/14

Chongqing - destroying the past

Since my first time in Chongqing in 2009, I have been going back as regularly as I could strolling and exploring the city. in 2011 as I was visiting the older part of the Yuzhong district, I came across an interesting area pictured in the below photograph. As I asked about it, I soon found out that it was the remains of an old Ming dynasty Government building. The site was quite amazing as it was surrounded by gloomy looking housing project. Last month, as I went back in this particular area, I found out that a construction site has been started on the western part of the lot and all the rest of this archeological site has been left to total chaos. This really shows again how the city struggles with its growing population and its urban planning.