TIRANA, Nov. 30 – “North Korea’s Choreography of Happiness” is an exhibition attempting to see from far and from close how the people of North Korea react to foreigners and their own countrymen. According to photographer Alfred Diebold, North Korea is the country that has gotten the worst press throughout the years, while little is actually known about the people living there. This exhibition’s aim is to shed light in the cultural aspect of this barely visible society.
“I had two reasons to visit North Korea. First, it is on the list of 193 countries, which are recognized by the United Nations. And my ambition is to visit all. Till today I managed 130, so there are more than 60 to go. Secondly, I saw photographs of a German photographer, which impressed me for quite some time. With this exhibition I would like to present photos which suggest that the government of North Korea certainly undertakes a lot of effort to make the population feel good about their own country. The events shown are certainly not orchestrated for foreigners as hardly anyone visits the country,” Diebold has written in a booklet explaining his photographs.
Diebold is a professional photographer based in Tirana. Educated in Germany, the US and Italy, he has published photo books, produced films and contributed to magazines, newspapers and important publications with his photos, articles and essays. In recent years, he has concentrated on stories about Central Asia, Italy, Korea and the Arctic. He likes to become part of events and takes joy in understanding local traditions and ways of life in remote, far-away places but also metropolitan places. He sees himself as a witness, as an analyst and an observer, and as such he is documentary, reportage and travel photographer.
His ambition is to see, understand and interpret the world through his own eyes and by means of his images and the media bring the issues closer to decision makers and the public. This present exhibition also serves the purpose of differentiating between what’s real and what’s fake, and whether the happiness that the photographs suggest is actually real. According to Diebold, older people in Albania can relate to the photos easily as they see and recognize what reality really was in Tirana in the 1960s and onward, until the fall of the communist regime.
