Unperson exhibition in Daejeon South Korea
My series “ Unperson - Portraits of North Korean Defectors “ is part of the first edition of the Daejeon International Photo Festival. 9 portraits of defectors as well as landscapes from North Korea and the escape routes have been exhibited in the Art Center of the city for two weeks. Here some of the documentation of the exhibition.
Exhibition in Pyeongchang for the PIPFF
The short film “ Reclaiming the negative” documenting my project Unperson is part of the official selection of the 2021 Pyeonchang Peace film Festival. The photos from my book are also exhibited as part of the festival and the team did a great job et curating the project. Here are some images from the exhibition.
More about this project:
In George Orwell’s 1984, an unperson is someone who has been vaporized, whose record has been erased. Similarly, the North Korean defectors that Tim Franco chose to portray have decided to disappear, fleeing sometimes for ideological reasons and often out of despair. The road to South Korea is dangerous and can take years, across the many different borders with Mongolia, Laos, Thailand and China. The travels of the ones that do are filled with the fear of being arrested and sent back to labor camps. Having arrived in South Korea, they often struggle to find a new identity; Lost between their North Korean past and South Korean future.
To reflect this incredible transition, Tim Franco used an analog material that is not supposed to exist: the negative of a polaroid reveals through a series of chemical purifications, resulting often in something uncertain, dirty and imperfect. Each portrait goes side by side with the story of how and why the subjects came to this radical decision. In order to retrace their trails, Franco travelled to the crossing points, aiming to capture the diversity of landscape that is the background of North Korean defection.
China - North Korea border | Rivers of defection
As both Koreas are trying to work towards a peace solution, the defections from the DPRK are happening daily. In my first chapter ( http://www.timfranco.com/unperson ), I have interviewed & portrayed those defectors. This time, I traveled along the border of the secretive state and China. The two countries are separated by two rivers and one mountain. Most of the defectors are crossing the rivers into China before finding their difficult way into South Korea. Crossing those rivers is the first step into a new world. Those photos are documenting those places and showing how close and easy it is to make this first step.
North Korea from the city of Dandong
Chinese fishfarm overlooking North Korea
North Korea
China
just a few meters between China and North Korea
An old bridge destroyed to cut the traffic between the two countries.
All those photos are copyrighted Tim Franco 2018 and available for editorial use upon request.
Get in touch timfranco@gmail.com
North Korean portraits | Unperson
This is the first portrait of my new series about North Korean defectors.
When Kim Pil-joo was a young boy, his mom was often traveling to China illegally to purchase and sell products. Every time she got back, a smell of candy and sweets was invading their home. He imagined China as a big candy factory. At 12, during a rough year of famine in the country, he experienced a public execution. The man had stolen a copper safety line from a mine and tried to sell it. It took him two attempts to manage to escape North Korea. His mom was already in China and it was a question of survival. When he finally arrived in South Korea, he was first shocked by how welcomed he was by the local government. All his life he was told how evil the South Korean were. Even thou he now lives and studies in the south, he finds it difficult to integrate fully the social and hope for a unique identity, where north and south are just one.
To reflect this incredible transition, I chose to portray those defectors on an analog material that is not supposed to exist. Just as their situation, the negative of a Polaroid is not supposed to be usable. It is only obtained through a series of chemical purification’s of the back paper of the original image. The result is often uncertain, dirty and imperfect. This series of portraits is the first chapter of a project reflecting on North Korea and the notions of borders and identity.
The complete series is available for publication upon request @ timfranco@gmail.com