1. Daily life scene Pyongyang City 2. Two woman in Mangyŏngdae, the birthplace of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung getting up to greet the visitors. 3. Young adults in Mangyŏngdae visiting the birthplace and listening to the life story of Kim Il Sung. 4. Army of woman marching along the river Daedong in Pyongyang City. 5. Childeren playing games in a park on 9th September 2011, North Koreas Independence Day
The power of the dream in the face of the trauma - North Korea - Pictures from a country in ongoing coma
If there is such a thing as a “true picture of realityâ€, it would certainly need to be taken from many different perspectives. At best, only a few facets are offered in our media, mainly drawing a picture of a drab and bleak North Korean society caught in the grip of nuclear madness and mass psychotic monotony. This is all true, but it is not the whole truth. The pictures of state-organized ecstatic mourners lining the streets of Pyongyang for the funeral of Kim Jong Il were also true, but this is not the whole truth either. In this apparently faceless country, other pictures can help capture the real and true stories behind the carefully maintained facade in the faces of the people, telling of sorrows and anxieties, desires and dreams of the individuals, in stark contrast to the decreed collective felicity.
On the road with the camera in a country where casually taken pictures could mean painful repressions for the people in front of the camera; On the scout in North Korea, where the individual is a ghost and the collective appear to be everything but the „Trinity“ determines everything; Always accompanied by an offical tour guide on routes defined by the government, offering only short glances or fleeting smiles, access to very simple people who would rather not speak, even if they had the chance to learn languages that would help them find a way out of their isolation and into the world.
THIS is dedicated to these individuals, who live with dignity and survive under nightmarish circumstances through their power of the dream, which they let me capture with my camera. Their faces tell stories that bring us closer to this country whose people deserve our undivided attention and unprejudiced sympathy.