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.
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. I wanted to find the people behind the mask of uniformity, albeit sporadic and still somewhat reserved. When I returned in 2016 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.
These individuals live with dignity and survive through the power of their dreams. Their faces tell stories that bring us closer a country whose people deserve our full attention and, more, our unprejudiced sympathy.
