Urban Residue

Across China, Malaysia, and Vietnam

This work explores the fragile boundary between memory and erasure within the rapidly transforming urban landscapes of Asia. Focusing on historic neighborhoods in Shanghai, Beijing, and across Southeast Asia, I document spaces that exist in a state of quiet disappearance, places where layered histories remain visible, but only just.

I am drawn to streets, facades, and interiors that carry the marks of lived experience: weathered textures, improvised repairs, fading signage, and the subtle traces of human presence. These elements act as visual records of cultural identity embedded in the built environment. As redevelopment accelerates, these neighborhoods are often reduced to fragments, their stories displaced or forgotten.

Rather than approaching these locations as documentary subjects, I photograph them as psychological and emotional landscapes. My images are intentionally still and contemplative, inviting viewers to slow down and engage with what may be gone tomorrow.

Through this work, I aim to create a visual archive that resists the pace of erasure, offering a space for reflection on impermanence, memory, and the cost of progress. Each photograph becomes both a record and a question: what do we choose to preserve, and what are we willing to lose?