Setting the Stage

In Setting the Stage: North Korea photographer Eddo Hartmann shows the North Korean regime's ambitions to build the ultimate socialist city and to mould the people living in that city to their ideals. Hartmann is one of very few Western photographers who has been allowed almost full access to the country. This publication is the result of many years of research and four visits to Pyongyang.

After the total destruction of Pyongyang during the Korean War (1950-53), the government took its chance to rebuild the capital from scratch and to turn it into the perfect setting for their propaganda. Pyongyang was to become the city in which every North Korean could experience true modern socialism. The buildings were to be the utopian background against which the inhabitants could live their daily lives.

Pyongyang was to immortalise the socialist revolution. Eddo Hartmann had the exceptional opportunity to photograph this architecture of artificiality. In a series of evocative images, he captures the forced and almost surreal character of North Korean ambition. In a very personal and original style, Hartmann focuses on the individual.

Book Features:

• One of the few western photographers allowed access to the capital of North Korea, Eddo Hartmann captures the surreal character of North Korean ambition
• Published to accompany an exhibition at the Museum Huis van Marseille in Amsterdam

About the Author

Eddo Hartmann was educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague (KABK). Apart from his personal projects, he also works as a freelance photographer for agencies and design studios in the Netherlands and abroad. His work can be found in various Dutch collections of photography and he has received awards from AOP, the Association of Photographers (London), and from DuPho, the Dutch Photographers organisation.