When I first landed in Seoul in 2007, I had arrived with two pieces of checked luggage and two carry-ons (one of which had a queen-size comforter stuffed into it in a moment of panic before walking through security at O’Hare Airport. Having spent the previous year living and working in Prague, Czech Republic, I knew what I needed to make a home for myself in a foreign country. The aforementioned comforter, a stack of photos of family and friends, a small wooden jewelry box, and year’s supply of Crest toothpaste and taco seasoning.
In the nearly five years that I ended up living Korea, I lived in three different officetels (a small studio-like unit that could be utilized for either an office space or a home/hotel space) and one bangia (a ground floor 2-bedroom apartment with a separate and - at the time - luxurious living room space). It was moving into this space with separate rooms, that I began to wonder how other expats made a home for themselves in a foreign country. What did others bring with them to make their officetel a home?
In photographing expats in their homes, I was often drawn to the details of each expat apartment. I often honed in on refrigerators and bookshelves as they unfailingly proved to be wide-open windows into each inhabitant. I photographed apartments with multiple rooms, several lofted studios with huge open windows staring at least ten stories down to the Korean neon below, a gosiwon (a low-cost micro studio typically for students or lower income renters) with barely enough room to stand in between desk and bed). And surprisingly: three cats, and one dog with a neon green stripe down its back. In collaboration with fellow expat photographer, Anthony Dell’Ario, The Expat Apartment Project was exhibited at Laughing Tree Lab in 2011.
