Silence is a long-term meditative documentary project that began after I collapsed under severe stress and set out alone in search of inner stillness. For twenty-two years, I have traveled across Korea each winter, photographing on analog black-and-white film. It did not begin as an attempt to photograph landscapes, but as a way to survive. Rather than recording scenery, I sought to record the silent passage of time. Winter strips away color and ornament, revealing the bare structure of existence. Working slowly with analog film, I reveal the traces of time, memory, and human existence.
Lee Gang-san is a Korean documentary photographer whose long-term projects over the past three decades explore human lives, lived spaces, and the traces of time. His major bodies of work include House, Yeoinsuk, and Silence, focusing on human dignity, memory, time, and silence. He has held nine solo exhibitions and participated in invited exhibitions, including Sympathy at the Lee Ungno Museum (2026) and Cities & Humans at the Daejeon International Photo Festival (2025). He has published Yeoinsuk 2: Time of Humans (2025), Yeoinsuk (2021), and House: A Room on Earth (2017).
