COVER STORY Itaewon, October 2022: importance of memory

By Bruno Figueroa

• Published Oct 29, 2026 7:00 AM KST
• Updated Oct 29, 2026 9:27 AM KST

I was in Itaewon on the night of Oct. 28, 2022, taking photos.

The following night, I learned from my deputy at the Mexican Embassy about the tragedy that had just happened. He went as close as he could to the scene and kept in contact with the police all night, trying to find out if any Mexican nationals were among the victims and reporting to me regularly until dawn. As the number of dead rose, eventually reaching 159, I grieved deeply, as did the Korean people and the foreign families who lost loved ones.

How could that happen? I knew the reason, because I was there the night before: too many people in such small streets and alleys and no crowd management at all.

The following year, before the first anniversary, I examined the 280 pictures I had taken until 1 a.m. What I saw were young people parading in sheer happiness and excitement, joyful at taking pictures and being photographed.

I have lived in the United States and knew about the aesthetic of Halloween, where “everyone is entitled to one good scare,” as Ray Bradbury wrote. The horror theme was certainly there in Itaewon. However, the party transcended Halloween. Why so many comic book characters, Cinderellas, a shirtless torero showing his muscles and Jesus Christ? Even some drag queens, two ladies dressed up in full sadomasochistic regalia and young women exposing more of their bodies than you could expect?

There was something deeper in what I saw and photographed: They were happy because this was genuinely a space of freedom for a couple of nights, during which strict social rules were abolished. It was, without that name, a carnival in the classical definition given by the anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep, who defined it as when regular societal laws, hierarchies and social structures are turned upside-down.

Itaewon was, according to Lee Hong, author of "The Lady from Gangnam," a small “special zone of freedom” within Seoul, a “space of exception,” and “one of the few places in Seoul where diversity, individuality, and self-expression were openly embraced.”

Itaewon lived for many years, during Halloween, in a state of anarchy — from the Green "anarchos," meaning without rulers — and it was that anarchy that led to the tragedy. I reflected that nothing would be the same after 2022, and I was right: so many police and the memories of the fatal night killed spontaneity and much of the self-expression.

I chose 33 pictures, and they have been on display since July and will remain on display until Saturday at the Centro Cultural de Cascais in Portual, under the title "The Last Carnival of Korea." Lisbon’s acclaimed Museu de Oriente will also exhibit a new set of pictures next year, starting on Feb. 9 — Carnival Day.

Quoting Lee Hong again, those pictures “perhaps remain a memory of Korea’s last carnival — a moment that can never be restored in quite the same form again.”

Bruno Figueroa was former Mexican ambassador to Korea. He is currently serving in Portugal.