The City Behind the Wall

Cities are constantly being rebuilt, but the processes of change often create brief moments when hidden layers of the urban landscape become visible. Construction fences, plywood walls, security screens, and torn advertisements temporarily separate the public from spaces in transition. Through gaps, openings, and damaged surfaces, unexpected views appear: vacant lots awaiting development, old buildings exposed between structures, and fragments of the city that will soon disappear.

The City Behind the Wall began with these temporary windows. Rather than documenting construction itself, the project focuses on fleeting views created during moments of urban change. These openings reveal spaces that exist only briefly before being transformed — a view across an empty lot before a new building rises, a glimpse of a forgotten structure before it is replaced, or a fragment of the city visible only until the wall closes and the landscape changes forever.

The photographs consider the city as an incomplete archive, where absence is often made visible through the traces it leaves behind. The walls surrounding redevelopment do not just conceal what is changing. They create a final opportunity to see what is about to disappear. Through these accidental frames, the camera records the brief moments when past, present, and future occupy the same space before one version of the city gives way to another.