The magazine of the photo-essay
Jan 2017 back issue
by Xiomara Bender
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
If there were such a thing as a “true picture of reality” in North Korea, it would
certainly need to be taken from many different perspectives. At best, only a few
facets of this reality are offered in our media, and they mainly paint a picture of a
drab and bleak society trapped somewhere between nuclear madness and mass
psychotic monotony.
This is all true, but it is not the whole truth. The same applies to the bulletins that
Pyongyang releases to the world to suggest the normality of their society. If one
wants to form a personal view of this apparently faceless country, it is best to let the
photographs speak for themselves, since they can help capture the reality behind
the careful ly maintained facade, telling of sorrows, anxieties, desires, and even
dreams, in stark contrast to the decreed communal happiness.
Three times in the last five years I have come to this land with my camera, on the
road in a country where casually taken pictures could trigger painful repression,
especially for the people in front of the camera. I’ve been on the lookout in North
Korea, where the individual is a ghost and the collective appears to reign, but where
the “Trinity” determines everything. While the first visit mostly had to follow the
predictable script as laid down by a state-organized tour, my second trip was dominated by the goal of lifting the curtain
on the backstage area of the at times surreal scenes acted out for me in this land that had inexplicably placed me
under its spell. I wanted to find the people behind the mask of uniformity, and I had some successful responses, albeit
sporadic and still somewhat reserved. When I returned this year for the third time, I arrived in a country that felt as if it
had changed—changes largely unnoticed by the world at large, but detectable nevertheless, because the people had
changed. Small amounts of individual space, calmly but persistently sought out, can someday add up to freedom on a
larger scale. The photographic documentation of this process is therefore the purpose of my third visit to North Korea.
It will not be my last.
These individuals live with dignity and survive through the power of their dreams, which they let me glimpse with my
camera. Their faces tell stories that bring us closer to this country whose people deserve our full attention and, more,
our unprejudiced sympathy.
Pyongyang 2015.
Pyongyang 2015.
Pyongyang 2015.
Songdowon International Camp 2016.
Pyongyang / Taedong River 2015.
Kaeson Youth Park, Pyongyang 2016.
Mangyongdae Children's Palace 2015.
International Childrens Day. Pyongyang 2016.
Pohyon Temple 2015.
International Childrens Day. Pyongyang 2016.
Hamhŭng 2016.
Hungnam Fertiliser Factory in Hamhŭng, 2016.
International Childrens Day. Pyongyang 2016.
Mankyongdae Schoolchildrens' Palace, 2016.
Pyongyang. Taedong River 2011.
Pyongyang Metro 2016.
Pyongyang Metro 2015.
Along The Reunification Highway, officially known as the Pyongyang-Kaesong Motorway, 2016.