Christian Lebrat
Calm morning
Author(s) Christian Lebrat
Format softcover book
Year 2023
Language(s) French, English
Pages 160 pages
Description
"Christian Lebrat only spent ten days in Korea, but the photographer's eye did not waste its time.
A very personal journey, which ignores neither tourism nor the picturesque, but keeps them at a distance,
through intelligence and sensitivity."
— Jacques Aumont, September 27, 2023
Christian Lebrat's impressions of a "calm morning" actually document the turbulent currents of a society in constant transformation. At the beginning of the book, a political demonstration against North Korea takes place in front of the central palace, peacefully flanked by its mountains. At the time I'm writing these lines, three years later, a picturesque shantytown with disheveled roofs surrounded by skyscrapers, in the city center, has already been demolished in favor of urban gentrification.
A bustling street full of fried chicken and beer restaurants is today the scene of a fierce demonstration by young Koreans to protect the ancestral house on this street against the predatory chain that has bought all the buildings and is closing down its competitors. But let's stay calm! For Christian Lebrat, this peaceful and joyful trip to Asia on the eve (at the calm morning?) of the corona pandemic represents the freedom of adventure in a country of contrasts.
The "Seoul of Asia" (the soul of Asia, the city's slogan in 2019) has much to offer tourists, from temples to subways, from seashores to mountains to the lively nightlife of the city center. The irony does not escape Lebrat: a display of Buddhist souvenirs faces a garbage sorting site; a seemingly chic hotel advertises in-room massages on its Kleenex boxes; a peaceful lotus pond sits alongside a crisscross of electrical wires above a street teeming with life.
It is a country of contradictions, particularly between what is visible on the surface (from the city's architecture to the cosmetics and plastic surgery of its citizens) and the deeper tensions of the peninsula's politics and history.