Stéphan Gladieu: North Korea

While undertaking this photographic investigation of North Korea, French photographer Stéphan Gladieu found himself under constant surveillance everywhere he went. Because of these constraints, he managed to invent an ingenious space of freedom. Gladieu created mirror‑portraits of people he encountered and was hosted by, often full length, which require a face‑on pose and a direct gaze. In this way, he managed to create a form similar to North Korea's propaganda imagery, which made his approach more comprehensible and permissible to the authorities. Consequently, Gladieu's work attains an almost historic act of intervention in the country's visual politics.