5 February 2014

Korea-Korea is a photographic project on the two faces of Korea. It took seven years to bring it off, starting in 2006, when the German photographer Dieter Leistner succeeded in obtaining permission to go to Pyongyang with his camera. He turned his lens on the military parades, the uniforms, the gigantic buildings that people the city. The colors are dull, the streets half-empty, the subways silent and tidy. In 2012, instead, he documented the other end of the Korean peninsula, the cheerful and hyperactive one of Seoul. Here, he explored the city’s shopping streets, visited the markets, the schools, the old imperial buildings. For Leistner, the journey through this divided country has been much more than a job. “It’s been a way of understanding better the contradictions in which I grew up. Until 1989, in Germany too it seemed impossible for East and West to live together.” Published by Gestalten.

Hero Youth Highway

Street scene in Insa-dong

Street scene in Pyongyang

Bus stop for Boseong Girls’ Middle & High School

17 Bus stop in Pyongyang

Café Sunset on Dongjak Bridge

Okryu Restaurant with view of the Okryu Bridge

Hat seller on Insa-dong Street

Policewoman on Janggwang Street

Cigarette break

Everyday scene

Architecture lecture at Daelim University

Language course at the Grand People’s Study House

Paper collector in Insa-dong

Street scene in Nambo