Euljiro is the part of Seoul I keep going back to. It is a district of print shops, hardware stalls and tool workshops, where the smell of ink still hangs in the alleys. Time Out ranked it the second coolest neighbourhood in the world in 2018, and a new wave of hidden bars and cafés has followed. But what draws me is older than that: a Seoul that still feels like the 1970s and 80s.
That Seoul is going fast. Block by block, Euljiro is being cleared for redevelopment, and the shops and workshops that gave it its character are making way for something newer and cleaner. Part of the neighbourhood’s coolness is that it is disappearing, and the label arrived just as the thing it describes started to go.
I shot this series on an 80-year-old Rolleicord, light leaks included. The camera is slow and imperfect, and the leaks add a dreamlike quality I couldn’t plan. For a place sitting between memory and demolition, that seemed right. The images feel half-remembered because the place is already half gone.
Tim Franco is a documentary and editorial photographer working between Paris and Seoul, with long-term projects on Korea’s changing urban landscape.