PhotoBooks North Korea

The Last Paradise offers a tantalizing glimpse into the surreal landscape and psyche of the world's last remaining communist dynasty, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Secretive, paranoid, and unrepentantly militant, North Korea has incubated its own peculiar mix of communist utopianism and personality cult. Fifty years after the armistice that established two separate nations on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea remains a mystery to most of the world, and now captures headlines as part of President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil." For nine years, Swiss photographer Nicolas Righetti waited for permission to document the self-proclaimed paradise, home of Dear Leader Kim Jong II, the "perfect brain" who inherited the regime from his father. Righetti is one of the few Western artists invited to photograph Pyongyang's new order of happiness; a candy-colored, kitsch interpretation of utopia as dictated by Juche, the state philosophy heralding the perfectibility of the masses under the benevolent guidance of Party and Leader. Forbidden from photographing or speaking directly to individuals, Righetti documents interior details, public murals and mass pageants. He makes careful note of the slogans in the street or of those regularly volunteered by his ever-present guide. "We are Happy," insists an airport sign greeting visitors; "We are in Heaven," reads another sign at a crossroads. And who could doubt such sentiments in the midst of the bright urban landscape dotted with paper flowers, curvaceous, neo-constructivist architecture, and synchronized folk dancing? Any telltale signs to the contrary remain embedded in the absurd juxtaposition of details: huge guns hidden in the traditional landscape wall paintings; looming, inescapable portraits of the late Great Leader and his son; empty shelves at the Paradise Food Shop; Big Brother exhortations proclaiming nirvana achievable through "iron discipline." Righetti offers a riveting guided tour through this seductive yet chilling landscape; the paradoxes of an earthly paradise and the tragic outcome of an unattainable utopia with its dual message: "Welcome. Stay Away."

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This book explores North Korea’s past and present as reflected by its showcase capital, Pyongyang. With photos and site-by-site descriptions, this nearly inaccessible place is revealed in unprecedented detail. (Hidden sites are also exposed, from the district for Party officials to prisons for dissidents.) In the process, the book illuminates dark corners of North Korean history.

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