City Never Dies is the research platform and publishing imprint of Luisa Cools, an interdisciplinary urban researcher and visual culture practitioner based in Korea.

Her practice examines how informal urban systems, vernacular visual culture, and ordinary spatial traces function as non-institutional repositories of collective memory within rapidly transforming East Asian cities. Working across Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and China, she develops long-term visual field archives of hand-painted signboards, demolition landscapes, informal object systems, transitional gardens, industrial architecture, and everyday spatial negotiation. Her research sits at the intersection of urban ethnography, visual anthropology, material culture studies, and architectural history, treating overlooked urban material as primary evidence of how labour, craft, and daily survival become embedded within the built environment.

Research outputs span peer-reviewed publication, independent press editions, solo and group exhibition, audiovisual work, invited lectures, guest workshops, and public programs across Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and China. A book on Korean urban aesthetics and vernacular signscapes is forthcoming with a Korean publishing house.

City Never Dies produces research, publications, exhibitions, and public programs with the aim of making long-term urban field research legible and accessible outside institutional channels.