Posters, 2013.
printed map and ballpoint pen on paper, 163 digital photos.
In the city of Seoul graffiti and tagging remain largely uncommon phenomena. What instead dominate the surface of the city are rather colourful commercial posters.
In an old deteriorating area, an A4 sized black and white poster glued to a wall stuck out to me. It did so because most of its surface and content had been covered up with black spray paint, and it was clear that the paint had been purposefully added to hide something. The poster had also been stuck to the wall with glue, another unusual quality considering posters are almost solely attached to surfaces with tape. Copies of the poster could be found around the specific area, but nowhere else.
Posters was made in an effort to locate all the copies of the specific poster and to document them. This was done following the methodology of walking down all of the narrow streets and alleyways in the limited area, and keeping track of my movements on a printed map. As the posters were discovered, a mark was made on the map to show the location of each poster, also giving each poster a number in the order they were found. Each poster was then documented with a digital camera - creating an archive of photos corresponding with the marked and numbered map.
In the end one hundred and sixty-three posters were found and documented, many of them covered with spray paint. The content of the posters was later revealed - the poster had been made in an effort to organise the diminishing local population, supporting the renovation of the area and fighting against a possible future demolition to build new high-rises.
Simen Godtfredsen
godtfredsen(at)hotmail.com