Pyongyang, Through a Back Alley, Sideways
How does one get to a Pyongyang that is not “frozen in time”? North Korea is often described as a place experiencing time lag, left behind like a remnant of an era past, which is perhaps another way to chart its imminent collapse. An outcome of this pastness put upon North Korea is that the images coming out of the country begin to take on a certain retro sheen. This teleological horizon of time renders North Korea asynchronous with the present, evacuating politics, the social, and everyday life from holding meaning or potency. This does something to the way we see. And the images, well, they become postsocialist fodder, kitschy reminders of times past. To take the direct path to Pyongyang would be to arrive at a place we already know. This talk seeks another passage, through a back alley, sideways, traversing the landscape of iconography to the Great Leader, the Kim-Kim-Kim family, and the portraits of Marx and Lenin that have returned, scenes both seen and unseen.
Lisa Min’s work examines the relationship between visuality and politics in and out of North Korea. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently affiliated with Seoul National University's Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies.
