RARE GLIMPSES OF DAILY LIFE
Efforts to preserve them have taken on renewed significance.
Such glimpses of daily life in North Korea are what an exhibition inside South Korea’s National Assembly is seeking to preserve and share.
Lining the halls are artworks focusing on the lived realities of ordinary citizens, which have become increasingly difficult to document as Pyongyang tightens restrictions on movement and communication.
Several of the works are by North Korean defectors themselves, depicting scenes drawn directly from their own experiences.
Many pieces are inspired by The Accusation, a collection of short stories by the pseudonymous North Korean author known only as Bandi. Written inside North Korea and smuggled out, the stories offer rare insight into the everyday lives of people living under the regime.
“For this exhibition, artists from both North and South Korea participated together,” said Do Hee-Yoon, head of Happy Reunification Road, an organisation that advocates for the reunification of the Korean peninsula.
“What is distinctive is that North Korean defector artists directly depicted their own lives in North Korea,” he added.
“The stories closely mirror the lives they themselves actually lived, and they expressed those experiences through their paintings.”
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/north-korean-defectors-escape-regime-south-korea-resettlement-5873171
