Andreas Taubert – North Korea Freedom Behind Bars

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What do we see of North Korea? The country run by a totalitarian dictatorship lives cut off from the rest of the world, behind a smoke screen hard to break through. The few foreign journalists authorized to get in are forced to navigate there according to the rules of the regime, and the pictures authorized to get out are those the regime do not mind showing. Consequently, North Korea is a challenge for photojournalists, and even for the testimonial values of the photographic medium. 

It is therefore to an exercice of critical thinking that Andreas Taubert invites us here. The German photographer has been allowed to travel to North Korea several times since 1989. One trip after another, one photograph after another, he shares with us what he was able to grasp from this country. The famous images of the demilitarized zone on the 38th parallel and of the mass propaganda and sport events go along more intimate pictures of daily life in cities and the countryside, in homes and shops. Andreas Taubert´s photographs tell us about North Korea as much in what they show as in what they do not. And you, what do you see of North Korea?