Fugitive Archives: Architecture, Police Photography, and Decolonial Futures

This paper examines underexplored police photographs of Chinese migrants in Korea under Japanese colonial rule, with a focus on architectural spaces. In 1940, a secret anti-Japanese association known as Ildonghoe was established by a group of Chinese migrants in the Korean city of Incheon. Following the arrest of its members in 1943, Japanese colonial authorities documented with photographs locations and objects related to the organization's activities. This investigation serendipitously created a photographic archive of architectural spaces in and around Incheon's Chinatown, many of which have since disappeared. The paper sheds light upon these police photographs as an "accidental archive," a repository of historical materials that gives rise to unintended outcomes with critical information about certain events, places, and moments. The paper pays particular attention to the peculiarity of police photographs as a form of happenstance yet significant documentation capturing historical moments that might otherwise remain elusive. Reading against the grain of colonial archives, this paper shows how the Ildonghoe photographs invite viewers to envision a different narrative of the racial relations forged under colonial rule and imagine decolonial futures that have yet to come.