A South Korean photographer and educator interviewed me about photography. One of her questions was particularly compelling: she asked how I viewed the exhibition of photographs on ground compared to online. As someone who works within both spheres, I believe they depend on one another, yet each maintains its own integrity, quietly confronting the other.

After the interview and a discussion about magazines, I set out to see an exhibition at the museum (BACC). However, the heavy traffic, the lack of parking, and the sheer exhaustion from talking more than usual meant I never made it inside. I decided to go home and sleep instead. This reminded me of a time when I desperately wanted to see an exhibition held in a distant province. Because I missed it and could find no record of it online, my disappointment felt doubled.

An on-ground exhibition demands a certain sacrifice, one that cuts deep into both the mind and the body. When the cost of participation is high, it forces us into a series of negotiations—deciding whether to go or stay, whether to accept a project or decline it. Yet, there is a profound fulfillment in visiting a physical space, meeting and talking with artists, organizers, and fellow viewers (an experience that a photobook can sometimes closely replicate). In that specific place, we become part of something larger than ourselves, resembling a religious ritual where the emotions cannot be easily explained in concrete terms.

Conversely, if the work disappoints us, that becomes a permanent memory, difficult to forget precisely because we sacrificed so much to be there—to speak, to listen, to exhibit, or simply to look. This is fundamentally tied to the nature of limited resources, which can never accommodate everyone. Both the artist and the viewer share this burden of sacrifice, suffering together in varying degrees within the on-ground world; a viewer who cannot travel to see an exhibition carries a disappointment not unlike that of an artist who is denied the space to show their work.

In the online world, we gain a different kind of power, an opportunity that requires no such heavy sacrifice. Everyone can access a space where they can show their work with relative freedom and ease, and the viewer enters an imaginary gallery unhindered by walls, borders, or social status. Although this space lacks certain dimensions—scale, touch, and time—this very limitation forces another powerful form of perception to emerge, one that rivals the on-ground experience of art. This is the perception of the concept itself, supported by the information surrounding it, such as critiques and essays, which rise to stand shoulder to shoulder within the digital domain.

Artists and viewers alike are cast into a somewhat barren, ambiguous world. The images on these virtual walls are merely mockups of an original, serving as stimuli that urge us to seek out the original one. Therefore, the information and ideas accompanying the work become essential nourishment, allowing the dry terrain of online photography to contend and negotiate with the power of the on-ground world on equal terms.

Photography does not always speak through concepts alone; much of it relies heavily on visual beauty. It is therefore crucial for editors, curators, and researchers to provide adequate context—discussing, critiquing, comparing, preserving, and distributing these works so they remain accessible to those interested, ultimately serving both future creation and the study of art history.

In reality, both spaces belong to the same cycle, neither completely destroying the other. Instead, they seem to sustain one another, filling the gaps to ease our shared painfulness. Artists and viewers alike are bound by the unavoidable constraints of living, which often prevent us from acting entirely as we wish or dream. Both on-ground and online spaces offer paths suited to different lives, neither inherently better nor worse, finding their equilibrium at some point across the vast landscape of art and our shared existence.