Yusuke Hishida: North Korea, and the Journey Continues

2019/01/23

On the day I first landed in Pyongyang, looking out the car window at the scenery stretching from the airport to the city, I felt as if I were traveling through time. Farmers heading home after finishing their work, children returning home in groups while singing. The scenes brought about by militarism and loyalty to President Kim Il-sung seemed like an extension of pre-war Japan.

When I visited Panmunjom, I could see tourists who had come from the South Korean side across the military demarcation line. From here, Seoul is only an hour's bus ride away. There are Starbucks and McDonald's there. I felt an intense "sense of incongruity" that the same ethnic group was building countries based on completely different values.

Based on this feeling, I started a project called "border | korea." I took numerous portraits in North Korea, then photographed people of similar ages and attributes in South Korea, presenting them side-by-side. The subjects ranged widely—from newborns to kindergarteners, students, weddings, the military, middle-aged people, the elderly, buses, subways, and horizons. Over eight years, I traveled to North Korea seven times and South Korea about ten times to complete a single photobook.

The first person to respond was Kotaro Sawaki. On his radio program, he spoke about this work, saying, "The greatest shock was not the differences between the two photographs, but their homogeneity." Photographs provide readers with images that transcend the author's intent. By drawing attention not only to the differences but also to the homogeneity, the worldview of this photobook expanded.

Afterward, "border | korea" was featured in newspapers and magazines both in Japan and abroad, and was even covered by a German television station. In addition to several solo exhibitions in Tokyo, an enthusiastic exhibition was also held in South Korea. The dramatic changes in the situation in North Korea also helped boost interest in the work.

When I was a student, I learned how to travel through a club called the "Keio Nature Lovers Society." After traveling around Hokkaido in my second year and Europe in my third, I crossed the Silk Road in my fourth year, traveling from Beijing to Istanbul by bus and train. Sawaki wrote that "travel is like a fever," and it seems my fever has yet to break. I crossed Europe following Syrian refugees, visited Bangladesh to see Rohingya refugees, and recently revisited Iraq to see the aftermath of the "Islamic State." To confirm the true nature of the "incongruity" I feel in this world, I believe I will continue to visit these sites and keep photographing something.