An Olfactory Visit to North Korea
2023 – ongoing, Perfume
The project is a series of perfumes about unreachable places. The artist’s experience of growing up in Paju, a South Korean city bordering North Korea, brought him questions about foreignness and longing. 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 broadcast companies