Touring North Korea is an interesting, but daunting prospect for Westerners. But touring the notoriously secretive country with a mirror ball under your arm seems like lunacy. Yet, that's exactly what Norwegian artist Morten Traavik did recently - and he was serious.
Misssion
For his next trick, Morten travelled to North Korea through an association that is linked to the strict government regime. But he wasn't just an ordinary Western tourist - he was on a mission: both to test out the social climate inside North Korea and to comment on the European and American habit of exporting their values to societies "that haven't always asked for those values", as he puts it.
But why the mirrored disco ball?
"A disco ball for me is a condensation of our Western consumer society. With a kind of a tongue-in-cheek view you can say that it symbolises what I, as a Westerner, think I have to offer North Korea".
Western concept
And there he was, touring the country with that glittering ball in his hands, taking photographs in the streets of Pyongyang. Although his guards kept a close eye on all his movements, he didn't meet many obstacles ("Security at Frankfurt Airport is stricter," he says), except for the fact that no one actually knew what that object in his hands was - as a Western concept like 'disco' is strictly forbidden in North Korea.
"People reacted with puzzlement. They wanted to know what the object was and what it was for. As long as I explained what it symbolised in this context, there wasn't any problem. The only place where I actually wasn't allowed to bring it was the demarcation line between the north and south. The North Koreans felt there was a risk that the South Koreans would see the reflection of the disco ball and think it was suspicious...!"
"I have a much better view of the society AND of the outside world now. The fact that I can bring this object into one of the world's most controlled societies is proof that there are always more nuances to reality than the one we are fed".
Disco zone
Morten's work in the region hasn't stopped now that he is back in Europe. His next project is a Miss Landmine Cambodia pageant later this year. But he also wants to return to North Korea to create a special disco-zone on the North-South demarcation line in order to, as he puts it, ‘spread the disco in North Korea'.
An even more daunting task than simply carrying a disco ball across the country, one would imagine.
Pictures courtesy of www.traavik.info
Tags: Angola, artist, Cambodia, disco, mirrorball, Miss Landmine, Morten Traavik, North Korea