Propaganda Art From North Korea's Arirang Festival Captured For New Exhibition (PHOTOS)
Thought The Olympic Ceremony Was Good? Wait Till You See North Korea...
Sam Parker— The Huffington Post UK
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This summer we gasped as 7,500 volunteers performed simultaneously to create Danny Boyle's Olympic opening ceremony.
Meanwhile, behind the closed doors of North Korea, anyone who managed to get around the Communist state's heavy media censorship to watch may have been slightly less impressed.
The reason is that twice a year, in the world's largest stadium in Pyongyang, a mass public celebration called Arirang requires no less than 50,000 young people to work in perfect tandem to celebrate their 'Eternal Leader'.
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Kim Il-Sung's Revolver
An exercise in government propaganda on an almost unthinkable scale, Arirang is marked by the young performers holding flipcharts of more than 150 unique pages that they switch between seamlessly to create giant mosaics.
The images chart the history of Korea, from the colonial times of Japanese occupation through the present day, and even the future.
Award-winning photographer Jeremy Hunter witnessed Arirang firsthand, and the images he took are set to go on display at London's ATLAS Gallery in January.
It's a beguiling project. At first glance the mosaics are just as beautiful, and the effort involved just as impressive as anything we saw at the Olympics.
Then you remember that the thousands of children involved were put through rigid and disciplined training regimes for over six months, all in the name aggrandizing a government that in many ways oppresses them.
Take a look at this selection of Hunter's photos below to learn more about the North Korea and the ceremony.
North Korea Propaganda Art
KIM JONG ILIA(01 of11)
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A representation of a hybrid Begonia cultivated in 1988 by a renowned Japanese botanist Kamo Mototeru to commemorate Kim Jong-Il's 46th birthday.Mototeru was requested to cultivate it in such as way that it would bloom annually, but only on 16 February - the Dear Leader's birthday. The flower is believed to symbolize wisdom, love, justice and peace. But the Begonia is not the national flower of DPRK - which is the Magnolia.
VICTORY ARCH(02 of11)
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Everything in North Korea attempts to be either the biggest or the tallest in the world. In the centre of Pyongyang is the VICTORY TOWER - modelled on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Constructed in white granite, the arch is 192 ft high, and 30 feet higher than its counterpart in France.
FISH(03 of11)
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North Koreans suffer from a lack of protein in their diet. Fish can provide that requirement but all fish belong to the State, as indeed does everything else. However, one last parting gift that Kim Jong-Il decreed before his death last year should be the availability of rations of fresh fish, which the State began distributing solely to Pyongyang residents - the Loyal or Core Class - in December 2011.
Shanghai Cityscape(04 of11)
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KOREAN ARMED RESISTANCE TO JAPANESE OCCUPATION(05 of11)
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The Japanese colonized Korea for 40 years before it was divided in 1948. Today, Japan remains equal First with the USA ("the Imperial Aggressor") as DPRK's Number One Enemy, and anyone in North Korea today who can trace their ancestry to Japan is therefore Guilty by Association, and all family members are likely at some point in their lives to be incarcerated in one of the infamous Gulag Camps. Kim Il-Sung portrayed himself as The Great Warrior who singlehandedly defeated the Japanese, and in ten years, fought 100,000 battles against the Japanese. That's 28 battles a day.
MOUNT PAEKTU(06 of11)
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Sunrise behind Mount Paektu, the most sacred mountain in the whole Korean peninsula. Koreans consider the mountain as the place of their ancestral origins. The Rising Sun is a visual motif that can also be seen in the inner sanctum of the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, the Mausoleum of Kim Il-Sung and now Kim Jong-Il.
PYONGYANG RIVER(07 of11)
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The lights in the windows of the houses bordering the river, and their reflections, are created with thousands of individual coloured flip-charts.
MILITARY WITH FLAG OF DPRK (08 of11)
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North Korea is the world's most militarized nation. The military comprises 1.5 million with another 9 million (estimated) in reserve. Military culture pervades every level of Korean society and children are encouraged to learn to shoot from an early age, and there are many rifle-ranges in the city.
A PAIR OF REVOLVERS(09 of11)
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To create this vast image requires perfect synchronization from at least 20,000 children. During the Japanese occupation, Kim Il-Sung founded the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army in 1932 and the story goes that he received this pair of revolvers from his father along with the slogan “aim high.” On his death, his widow was instructed to give them to his favoured son Kim Jong-Il. When the revolver mosaic appears, the audience cheer.