If You Remember Me
Project Description
“Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last.
“It’s a little lonely in the desert…”
“It is lonely when you’re among people, too,” said the snake.”
The little prince gazed at the snake for a long time.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
If You Remember Me is a portrait series about the people I met while traveling alone.
The more time I spend walking by myself, the more carefully I notice others.
In unfamiliar cities, I sometimes spend only a few minutes with someone,
or several days, and record the expressions and conversations.
The distance between people is always delicate.
Too close, and things blur, too far, and nothing reaches you.
Working on this series, I began to sense that thin line
where a stranger slowly becomes someone familiar.
Sometimes, I want to see the world through their eyes.
When that happens, I hand them a disposable camera
and ask them to photograph freely for a few days.
Waiting back in Korea for those films to be developed
is one of the most exciting parts of this project.
The images feel like letters they send to me.
At first, I believed these encounters would remain as brief moments.
But I learned I was wrong.
A German traveler I met in Tokyo later visited Korea on an unplanned trip,
posting a photograph of himself smiling on a mountain
I had never even heard of.
And a Taiwanese traveler I met in Indonesia
came to Korea months later just to see me again.
She showed me her phone, filled with English sentences
she had practiced for weeks, things she wanted to ask me,
things she hoped we would talk about.
Those moments made me rethink the line I wrote in
If You Remember Me: Tokyo:
“Maybe I will never see them again.”
This series began in Tokyo,
but it has since expanded across island coastlines,
city night streets, and now toward another continent.
Soon, it will continue in the deserts of the Middle East.
What these encounters will become inside me
will reveal itself with time.
What remains in the end
will appear in the ways they leave something behind.
I will continue meeting people, sharing moments,
and quietly recording those brief, shifting distances
through photographs and words.
For now, this is the way I understand the world,
and the way I remember people.
If You Remember Me – 작가노트 “If You Remember Me”는 여행 중 마주친 사람들을 기록한 포트레이트 시리즈입니다. 길을 걷다 문득, 사람과 강아지가 닮았다는 생각이 들었어요. 부모와 자식처럼요. 푸딩을 사러 들어간 편의점에서는 유창한 영어를 구사하던 직원의 이름표에 적힌 “シャイン”(Shine)이라는 이름의 이방인. 어느 이자카야에서 “키요츠케데(Take care)”라는 말로 인사하고 숙소로 가는 밤거리를 걷는데, 오래전 스무 살 시절 친구와 놀고 집에 걸어가던 그 길에 있다는 생각이 들었어요. 낯선 사람과 대화를 나누던 중, 그 사람만이 가진 이야기가 얼굴 위로 번질 때가 있어요. 그 날것의 표정을 마주한 순간, 사진을 정말 찍고 싶다는 생각이 들었어요. 아마 조금 더 오래 붙잡고 싶었을 거예요. 그들과 나눈 짧은 대화, 얼굴, 목소리, 그날의 날씨와 공기, 향 같은 것들을 말이에요. 아마 대부분의 사람들과는 다시 만날 수 없겠죠. 사람들의 얼굴에서 아주 짧은 진실의 순간이 반짝이는 걸 볼 때가 있어요. 운이 좋으면, 그 찰나가 사진에도 남아요. 이 작업은 인물 사진이지만, 동시에 나의 여행 일기이자 짧은 대화 속에서 스쳐간 사람들과 나눈 감정의 기록이에요. 이 만남들이 나에게 어떤 의미로 남을지는, 시간이 지나면서 조금씩 드러날 거예요. 무엇이 진짜로 남는지는, 그들이 보여줄 거라고 믿기 때문이에요. 전 앞으로도 사람들을 만나고, 이야기를 나누며 그 과정을 지금처럼 사진과 글로 기록하며, 조용히 이어갈 생각이에요. 그게 지금, 내가 사진으로 말하고 싶은 방식이에요.
“If You Remember Me” is a portrait series that records the people I encountered while traveling . While walking down the street, I thought people and dogs resemble like parents and children. At a convenience store I went into to buy pudding, the clerk spoke fluent English, and their name tag read “シャイン” (Shine). A brief conversation with a stranger, another outsider, but not quite like me. At an izakaya, someone said “kiyotsukede” (Take care) as a goodbye, and as I walked back to my accommodation, I felt like I was on the same road I used to walk home on with a friend in my early twenties. While talking with strangers, there are moments when their story spreads across their face. When I face those raw expressions, I want to take a photo. Maybe I just wanted to hold onto it a little longer. the conversation, their face, voice, the weather, the air, even the scent of that day. I probably won’t be able to meet most of them again. But sometimes, a very brief moment of truth flashes across a person’s face. If I’m lucky, that moment stays in the photograph. This project is a portrait series, but also my travel diary, and a record of the emotions I shared with people in passing conversations. What these encounters will mean to me will slowly become clear over time. Because I believe they will show me what truly remains. I’ll continue to meet people and talk with them, recording it in photographs and writing. This is how how I’ve come to speak through photographs