This project documents the evolution of multilingual signage within the border city of Dandong, China. Within the confined sample area of GORYEO ST, these signs are read by an audience that handles about a quarter of North Korea’s external economic trade (legal/illegal) under cover of Chinese relative freedom. Within these unique contexts emerge distinctive lived experiences, narratives, and dialogues, that are all reflected within its language use.

By visualizing the text and photographs collected from 500+ signages within the past decade (2014-2024), the goal is to invite the viewer to partake in an interactive journey of exploring this complex intersection of contexts, explore the ways in which broader systems, factors, and influences are reflected in these visual components, and then bring these reflections into our own, or other similar spaces.

Through visual ethnographic research, I explore an inquiry-based investigation on how one’s language identity engages with a politically sensitive world.

Gaining familiarity with the people and cultural makeup of the area prompts us to consider how identities are shaped, making it important to share these distant and obscured narratives with the western audiences on the other side of the wall.