![]() I tried composing a zine that depicts scenes expressing a whole range of emotions, from lightheartedness to bleakness." ![]() "I appreciate it whenever I can find something that provides a glimpse into the former occupants' lives. It's what I am most drawn to while exploring abandonments," he said. "While abandonment and destruction are evident in The Bulldozed Future, the focus is on the objects people leave behind in their former homes or workplaces. He lets his photos do the talking, with minimal explanation accompanying the images. The book focuses in on one aspect of his visits that inspires his curiosity: rather than examining the urban fabric or taking a snapshot of a step in the urban renewal process, he wanted to present the objects he's found left behind like garbage. "Since my teens, I have been a zine reader and have appreciated them the same way I respect the DIY/punk ethos the format offers many paths to express oneself." "Making a zine seemed like a natural extension from publishing a blog," he said. His adventures are documented on his website, but he wanted to share his work in print, a physical medium that seems to be disappearing from our lives. While urban explorers are active in most countries, Berkebile is only one of a couple dozen active in Korea, photographing the country's many forgotten sites, along with his wife Sounion Hong who helped him put together the photo zine. He's an urban explorer, part of a worldwide movement of adventurers who visit abandoned buildings and other uninviting urban destinations, from underground infrastructure to rooftops and the various layers in between. Urban explorer and zine publisher Ryan Berkebile holds a roof tile from a hanok in Seoul built during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation during a visit in May 2020. The Bulldozed Future was born from years of documenting these scenes." "It can be unsettling yet fascinating to come across the discarded pieces of someone's life. citizen who has lived here for over a decade. "It's always a little perplexing when you find people's personal belongings in a space they used to occupy," said Berkebile, a U.S. "Seoul is continuously in the cycle of pushing working-class people out of their homes and erecting high-rise apartments in their place, so the majority of my explorations in Seoul have been from exploring neighborhoods on their last days," he told The Korea Times.Īfter spending over six years exploring Seoul and Gwangju as well as much of the rest of the country, he decided to share his visits to these forgotten and endangered sites in a newly printed photo zine titled "The Bulldozed Future," revealing old styles of architecture and what people leave behind. Before the bulldozers move in, Ryan Berkebile pays a visit. Urban Korea has seen rapid changes over the decades, with entire neighborhoods disappearing all at once to make way for bigger, taller, more expensive buildings. A banner version of the cover of Ryan Berkebile's urban exploration photo zine, "The Bulldozed Future" / Courtesy of Ryan Berkebile
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