Limited depictions: The lessons gleaned from Western photos of North Korea

When we think of North Korea, certain images tend to come to mind. Perhaps we think of “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un addressing foreign dignitaries. Or maybe malnourished children looking forlornly into a camera lens. During her Feb. 21 talk in Smith Warehouse, Boyoung Chang, assistant professor and faculty of arts at the University of Albert, made the case that these images are no accident. 

In her talk “Circulation and Mediation: Photography and the Making of North Korea in Contemporary ‘Visual Culture,’” Chang delved into the topic of photographs in North Korea. She remarked on the West’s seemingly never ending fascination with the country, fueled by North Korea’s isolation, which has made it the subject of great mystery. Images of the country are few and far between, meaning the few that exist are subject to great interest. 

In the early 2010s, there was even a popular website titled “Kim Jong Il Looking at Things,” which was exactly what the name suggests. It was full of pictures of former president Kim Jong Il looking at various objects, with short captions like “looking at instant soups.” More recently, videos of President Kim Jong Un crying during a speech urging Korean women to have more children have circulated widely on TikTok. 

While these images seem harmless and even hilarious, Chang argued that they deserve to take a deeper look. After all, even photographs are heavily politicized, and these videos and images concerningly only reinforce existing narratives about North Korea. The photos of former president Kim emphasize his excessive interest in seemingly normal things, highlighting North Korea’s abnormality in the West’s eyes. Meanwhile, his association with everyday objects also distracts viewers from Kim’s status as a brutal dictator and the leader of a country with a large nuclear arsenal. 

Chang argued that the Western obsession with obtaining “behind the scenes” photos of North Korea is an inherently flawed one, as any photo they are allowed to take or see is heavily curated. Trying to escape this curation is futile, and understating its influence just reinforces state narratives.

Instead, Chang invited the audience to consider how certain South Korean artists and photographers have engaged with the impossibility of portraying a true North Korea. Artist Kwon Hayoun took a direct approach in her piece “Model Village.” Frustrated by her inability to obtain a filming permit for Kijong-dong — North Korea’s Potemkin propaganda village — she decided to construct a model of it with clear plastic. She then filmed a tour of her model, constantly shifting her camera so that it was difficult to get a clear view. The resulting video accurately captures the inscrutability of the village. Instead of shying away from the fact that photographs of North Korea will never provide the objective truth, she confronts this reality head on. 

Photographer Noh Suntag took a different approach, focusing on the acts of seeing that occur between North and South Koreans. Like many Western photographers, he covers the Arirang games, a massive event in Pyongyang celebrating King Song Il’s birthday. However, instead of imitating German photographer Andreas Gurskey’s famous sweeping panoramas of North Koreans gathered in strict formations, Suntag chose to zoom in. Change demonstrated how Suntag’s photographs show that beneath the military neatness, there are still small demonstrations of personality — a head tilt here, a smile there. The photographs do not shy away from the heavy choreographing of everything; however, they do make an effort to reduce the distance between the viewer and North Koreans. 

Throughout the talk, Dr. Chang skillfully guided the audience through the issues surrounding photographs of North Korea, and how different artists have reacted to these constraints. She argued that perhaps the best approaches directly engage with the constraints instead of trying to avoid them. Hopefully one day North Korea will open to the world again, but until then, in order to understand the country, we must understand our limitations in trying to do so.