Photographer Ted Lau immaculately captures the hermit kingdom
’s photographs, you will see tens of thousands of young North Koreans giving the performance of their lives. Some are swinging giant paper pompoms, while others, dressed in neon metallic finery, are waving to an off-camera audience. In one photo, a sea of children hold up individual coloured cards, forming a staggering, stadium-sized portrait of a rainbow. It’s a spectacle that’s typical of North Korea’s Arirang Mass Games – the world’s biggest and most extravagant choreographed event.
The Hong Kong-born fine art photographer travelled to North Korea in October 2019, weeks before the pandemic tightened its grip on the world. As well as hoping to catch the Mass Games, Lau was also intrigued by the country’s enigmatic reputation – he wanted the chance to see it “as it is now,” with the threats of globalisation, capitalism and nuclear war just specks on the horizon.
“I don’t think they are trying to hide much, at least not from tourists,” he says. “But I live in Hong Kong which is right next to China, a communist country, and a common thing about communist countries is that they’re quite insecure about themselves. They essentially want to show that things are not so bad there; that their system works fine.”
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