In February 2019, a week before the second Trump Kim summit in Hanoi, I travelled to North Korea, in and around Pyongyang for 7 days, visiting about 35 places, always monitored and guided by the Korean Tourist Bureau and its minders. Beyond the prospects of a nuclear confrontation between the United States and the most hermetic power on the globe, I wanted to document what life is for its citizens, away from the propaganda images we are used to see.

Even though I got to see probably just a façade, I wanted to show what life is like for people in this closed society. I was not allowed to travel freely but I could document without being censored. As a photographer, my motivation was to try to witness and document first hand by going on location; visiting a cooperative farm, a window glass factory, a school, a bowling alley, a library, a water park and numerous monuments, museums and other sights.

The North Korea portrayed in these photographs is very real. My purpose is no to judge but humbly to try to better understand the kind of existence people have in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

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