Visiting North Korea
2023 – ongoing, Perfume
Scents are not easy to capture or describe, but it may be the most intimate way we remember a place. Through perfume, a highly fetishised object, the project attempts to close the distance between oneself and the unreachable. What I found is nostalgia without memory, a souvenir without a journey.
While South Koreans rarely sense North Korea's presence, some visitors from the West have been producing fetishising images over decades. Combined with the country’s uncanny propaganda, these images shape what is believed to be North Korea. The first piece imagines a springtime in Pyongyang. The recipe refers to three sources 1. travel essays from the West; 2. propaganda texts, images, sound and lyrics describing the scent of Pyongyang from the North Korean web; 3. videos from South Korean broadcasting companies