It’s always Seoul that gets mentioned in the media’s coverage of South Korea, and since it’s so close to the border with North Korea, that’s understandable. But on the southeastern coast of the Korean peninsula, there’s another sprawling city that offers some of Asia’s most intriguing urban sights. Dense and vibrant, Busan shows how Asian cities are leading the way in futuristic high-rise, while preserving their historical roots.
Busan was one of the few cities in South Korea that was not captured by the North during the Korean War in the 1950s. Busan is now the country's second most-populous city after Seoul, with 3.6 million inhabitants. It has become an international business and finance center, with one of the busiest seaports in the world. On the edge of the city, Busan’s Gamcheon Culture Village - once a refuge following the Korean War - has turned into a colourful community that connects the past with the present.
Exploring Busan with my camera for a week, I aimed to capture the patterns in its urban chaos and the place of the individual in an ever-expanding landscape of concrete. Life, in a modern metropolis.
