Lee Se-hyun's photography exhibition 《Afterglow》 (잔광, 殘光) opened on September 8. It closes on Sunday the 20th, which leaves eight days. The venue is SPACE LEESEEN.

Shot with cast light

The artist set up his camera in six places: bullet marks lodged in the concrete at Nogeun-ri, the tunnels of the Gyeongsan cobalt mine, the old operating room of the Gwangju Red Cross Hospital, the Gwangcheon Citizens' Apartments, military fences along the east coast, and ground in Uiseong where a wildfire passed through. At these places, anywhere from a year to more than seventy years have gone by since the events.

Lee cast red and blue artificial light over them himself and photographed the result. Visit by day and the concrete is just concrete, the tunnel just a tunnel. Add light and the surface changes. The marks bullets left and the soot take on color and come up again. All the works on the walls belong to the series 「Blue Face, Red Night」 (푸른 낯, 붉은 밤). The word 「nat」 (낯) in the Korean title means face.

The concrete wall of the twin-tunnel bridge at Nogeun-ri. A white circle is drawn around each bullet mark, and the wall is lit deep blue at left, red in the middle and yellow at right. A bright horizontal band runs across the bottom, like the trail of a passing car.
〈Nogeun-ri Bullets〉 (노근리 총탄, 2023), 100 × 150cm. A white circle marks each bullet hole. On a single wall, the left side is stained blue and the right yellow.
Deep inside a narrow mine tunnel. The rock walls on both sides are stained red and purple, and blue light pools only on the floor at the dead end. Old wooden supports span the ceiling.
〈Deep Inside (Gyeongsan Cobalt Mine)〉 (깊은 속, 2023). The rock walls on both sides are red, and blue light pools only on the floor at the dead end.

Three strands

The exhibition is divided into three parts. The first is the darkness of the bullet marks and the mine tunnels. The second is the things left behind at the Gwangju Red Cross Hospital and the Gwangcheon Citizens' Apartments. The third is the wreckage in Uiseong and the fences on the east coast.

An empty former operating room. Two surgical lights hanging from the ceiling glow yellow. The left wall and the operating table are lit pink, and the medical equipment and oxygen tanks at right are lit blue.
〈Operating Room, Former Gwangju Red Cross Hospital〉 (옛 광주 적십자병원 수술실, 2024). The surgical lights glow yellow, and different colors come into the left and right sides of the room.
A long horizontal view of an old four-story apartment building. Each window is lit differently, in blue, yellow or red, and lettering from a sign runs vertically down the central stairwell. In front of the building are bare earth and overgrown grass.
〈Gwangcheon Citizens' Apartments〉 (광천시민아파트, 2025), 250 × 700cm. Each window is lit a different color. It is the largest print in the show, 7 meters wide.

The first two concern events from long ago. The last happened just this past spring. Scenes separated by wide gaps in time hang in one room. The exhibition statement puts it in a single short line: "All history leads to the present."

The wreckage of a building brought down by wildfire. The tin roof has collapsed in one piece, and yellow light leaks out from the gaps. The trees in the woods behind are lit green, and half-burned timbers and roof tiles are strewn across the ground.
〈Traces of Fire, Uiseong 2〉 (의성 불의 흔적 2, 2025), 80 × 120cm. Light leaks out from under the collapsed roof.
A barbed-wire fence running along the coast. Coiled razor wire runs along the top, and beyond it are the sea and a cloudy evening sky. In front of the fence is a sand dune overgrown with weeds.
〈East Coast Fence〉 (동해안 철책, 2024), 80 × 120cm. Beyond the wire is the sea.
A large bell under an evening sky. Its surface is cracked and the loop at the top is broken. It is lit red from the left and blue from the right, and broken roof tiles and piles of stone cover the ground. Behind it are bare branches and a lit structure.
A bell cracked by fire, lit red from the left and blue from the right. The ground is broken roof tiles and rubble.

Red light and blue light

Lee has built this series by seeking out places that still carry the scars of modern Korean history. Last year's Gwangju Young Artists Invitational at the Gwangju Museum of Art's Ha Jung-woong Museum of Art, 《Lee Se-hyun: Blue Face, Red Night》 (이세현 : 푸른 낯, 붉은 밤), was a midpoint review. The title sets a face gone blue with fear against red light in the dark. Blue stands for loss and mourning, red for what remains of violence and resistance.

The same series also includes photographs of the Armed Forces Gwangju Hospital and the 505 Security Unit. Did he settle on the colors first and then choose the places, or did the places call up the colors? That is for each visitor to work out in the gallery. If you find a photograph where the two colors meet in one frame, start there and take your time.

Visitor information

For the exact address and closing days, it's best to check SPACE LEESEEN's announcements. It opens only during weekday daytime hours, so if you're aiming for a weekend, the days left are the 13th and 14th, and the 19th and 20th.