'North Koreans' provides rare glimpse of mundane life in DPRK
Elderly women hang out on an apartment stoop on Munsu Street in Pyongyang in 2011. It is a familiar sight in South Korea, except one of these women appointed to monitor visitors according to the publisher. / Photo by Martin Tutsch
By Jon Dunbar
The cover of “The North Koreans” shows two North Korean women transporting goods by bike along the Pyongyang-Nampo expressway in 2008. One woman makes a face as she notices the photographer. / Photo by Martin Tutsch
Three women wearing joseonbok (North Korean traditional dress) walk through Pyongyang in 2009. / Photo by Martin Tutsch
The internet is flooded with galleries of "rare," "secret" and "forbidden" pictures "smuggled out of North Korea" that "Kim Jong-un doesn't want you to see," but most are from tourists taking the same five-day group tour of the secretive country. But "The North Koreans: Glimpses of Daily Life in the DPRK" easily lives up to its promise.
The 252-page book, published by Dutch publisher Primavera Pers in November, gives an extensive, almost exhaustive overview of the side of North Korea the tourists don't get to see, or at least are rushed past on tour buses.
This collection of 333 images is culled from 22 photographers, mostly rounded up on Flickr. Many supplied only one image, with the vast majority coming from three central figures. The top contributor provided 147, nearly half. Each photographer brings unique strengths to the book, with some offering incredible insight into the country, while others take great portraits and others focus on landscapes, infrastructure or buildings.
The collective image they form is vivid yet distant and alienated from the people while yearning for closer contact. Buildings appear cold and uninviting and transportation infrastructure is dilapidated. Some pictures focus on wood-burning trucks that run on firewood, a technology long since forgotten in the South if it ever existed here. The countryside is an eroded wasteland, further emphasized as a high number of pictures were taken in winter, when the land is barren, rather than during tourist season.
But still North Koreans are seen living a recognizably mundane daily life: carrying umbrellas in the rain, cramming into buses just like rush hour in Seoul, or having a family picnic in a city park. One picture shows a group of older women hanging out in front of their apartment where they can watch people come and go, a familiar scene in South Korea as well ― although the book mentions one is specially appointed to do this work. The mundane side of North Korea shows that it hasn’t drifted that far culturally from the South, which is all the more heartbreaking.
Some pictures depict the miserable conditions North Koreans face, such as one showing people carrying backpacks loaded with what is identified as feces for fertilizer. Another shows boys playing on a playground surrounded by drying charcoal briquettes. Other photographs focus on the ubiquitous propaganda and homeless orphans.
Workers are transported by truck to a rural area in 2007. / Photo by Raymond Cunningham Jr.
The book is divided into nine chapters, ranging from daily life and the informal market economy to infrastructure and industry. This covers a lot of ground, while ignoring topics of popular fixation such as official propaganda events and lavish monuments. Each chapter begins with a thorough introduction written by publisher Evelyn de Regt, who has visited North Korea herself.
According to de Regt, some of the main photographers only wanted to supply photos but didn’t want to get further involved, with some even hiding behind pseudonyms.
Some are known or have reasons to hide their identities. French citizen Eric Lafforgue, one of the main contributors, is no longer welcome in the country. Willem van der Bijl, a Dutch consultant on the book, spent time in a North Korean jail cell after repeated business trips to Pyongyang. Mystery shrouds Martin Tutsch, rumored to be a diplomat who posts on Flickr under the username Moravius. Many others continue to visit North Korea and don't wish to risk that.
So rather than highlight the minor contributors at the expense of the top photographers, de Regt decided the book would treat everyone equally by not talking about them.
But de Regt isn’t worried about unfavorable attention from the regime, pointing out only 1,000 books are being printed and many pictures have had more views online. She also takes to heart advice from van der Bijl, "not to overestimate one’s importance with respect to North Korea.”
“North Koreans are far more interested in their own enormous problems, than in some photobook published in the West," she said.
The book is distributed in South Korea by Idea Books.