Taking Group Photos in Busan with No Purpose, then Joining the Commemorative Photos of Strangers

In Pusan I undertake to shoot random group photos with no purpose. In addition to this I intend to join the commemorative photos taken naturally by unknown tourists in the city, further developing this into a commemorative photo of the people I meet during such a process. These images are then taken and presented on billboards around the city. Here we become commemorative monuments of a community/collective. It is certainly the case that this functions as a symbol of a very particular community, however in the approach to this project the theme of community is not stressed, secretly each participant places different meanings upon it, and so disrupts the notion of community as defined by purpose. In other words, the image held in each photo is of a collective with no common denominator, a false appearance, limited to the performance of 'the group of us that happened to be there'. Therefore intention of this work may also be said to lie in the formation, through photographic media , of a vessel into which anything may be placed, the vessel of 'we'.

The relation which is instigated within these group photos, is wholly limited to that time and place, it is an intangible relation which will soon extinguish, existing between people who will never meet again in their lives. In this case what is focused upon is not the photograph as it exists in building a momentary sentiment, but the very device by which to create a relationship with people, even if it is intrusive, intentionally disturbing the action of people taking a photograph, which may be considered the core of this work, in the creation of a semblance through such operations.

From the discomfort produced by the recognition of the forced nature of these group photos, a question is formed as to the very meaning of the phrase we sometimes use when facing the world, that of 'we'. By intervening in the simple social action of taking a commemorative photo, a search is undertaken towards the condition of our awareness of collectivity which lies behind such actions.