Hosang Park

I came across some great shots by Korean photographer, Hosang Park. The title of this collection is "A Square" and he aims to reveal what he calls the "band-aid of nature" in areas of high-density development.

I like these photos because I see these parks everywhere in Korea. Public parks, apartment complexes, and rest areas in Korea are built very quickly and all seem to embody similiar physical and spatial elements. These places are usually overdesigned and crammed full of visual data in what Park describes as "landscape as signage:"

"their presence in Korea is both a reassurance and an investment: the trees, paths, and water features, no matter how artificial, push up property prices by providing an implicit guarantee of the 'environmental' benefits of a place where they belong...crammed together as visual shorthand for endless leisure. They are landscape as signage, a placeholder for the possibilities of a park."

Check out the rest of Park's photographs here.