Bae Bien-U’s commission work for Louis Vuitton goes on display at the ‘Volez, Voguez, Voyagez – Louis Vuitton’ exhibition in Seoul. Vogue Korea covers Bae’s journey following the founder of mega-brand.
In the Jura Mountains, photographer Bae Bien-U pressed the shutter.
Like a brush soaked in ink and water, his photographs, which resemble ink-wash paintings, speak of unrecorded time past through the voices of forests and trees.
Following in the footsteps of Louis Vuitton 160 years earlier, Bae walked again and again through the deep valleys of the Jura in France — to the site of a former watermill, the birthplace of Louis Vuitton, the son of a poor carpenter. He visited the Anchay area in the spring of 2014. After a long drive along winding mountain roads into the heart of the forest, he learned of the Sewol ferry disaster only from the owner of his lodging; it was a small village surrounded by trees and cut off from the outside world. The house where Louis Vuitton is said to have spent his childhood remained in ruins, frozen in the past.
“Every morning at dawn I went to that house and prayed silently. Then I drove out to places 60 km away and photographed the surroundings.”