Public Project
Portrait of North Korea
Copyright JIAN LUO 2024
Updated Nov 2020
Location North Korea
Topics Documentary, Editorial, Essays, Photography, Photojournalism, Portraiture
Despite photo studios are common in Pyongyang, it has been difficult to find a typical North Korean portrait other than their president. In this nation, portraits are used as a propaganda and therefore are deliberately taken out in public communication. Today, North Koreans maintain an attitude that rejects individual photographs and remain unfriendly toward the behavior of photo-taking.

Ignoring all the facial features of the subjects, the photographer presents an image of North Korea through the environment, the atmosphere and the distance between people, in order to convey a message that under the autocratic regime, North Koreans refuse to be closely examined. In the portraits, we cannot see any facial details such as pores and wrinkles, but a projection of totalitarianism. 

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