Daesung Lee is a South Korean photographer, born in Busan in 1975, who has lived in Paris since 2010. He earned an MFA in photography at Chung-Ang University in Seoul in 2003 and began with documentary work before turning to staged images about climate and society. His projects include On the Shore of a Vanishing Island, Futuristic Archaeology, The Red Forest and Love Your Neighbours.
His work has been shown at festivals including Cortona On The Move, La Gacilly and Getxophoto. He has been awarded by the Sony World Photography Awards (2013 and 2015) and Prix Voies Off (2016), and he won the Bourse du Talent in 2023 for Love Your Neighbours.
Nirvana, which he began in 2024 after returning to his parents’ home in South Korea, is made together with his mother. When he asked what life she would want if she could be born again, she answered that she never wanted to be born again. Together they turn stories from her life into constructed photographs that move between humor, grief and play. The series won first place in the Series category of the LensCulture Portrait Awards 2025.
