Nowadays, when a camera is likely to be considered as a weapon, we understand clearly that the value of an image departs not only from aesthetic grounds, or conceptual depths. Overpassing obstacles, bans, censorships is often a photographic victory bringing images of the yet undiscovered backstages of the 21st century.

Liu Yuan from series Red City, Pyongyang, 2008

What do I know about North Korea today, more than half a century after the division into North and South? I asked, we would smartly respond: "Nothing, but let me google somting about it..."  And in the end we would answer, that both in the all-mighty www search systems, and in our minds of the western world, this country remans like a blank spot. Even having a certain imagination about North Korea, we have no images in mind to associate with the mysterious country.

The exhibition “Journey thought North Korea” by Liu Yuan does not promise to be expressive or scandalous. Yet, it is inviting to activate our attentiveness, to look, see, discover and understand. For Lithuanian public, especially people having lived under the Soviet rule, even tiny details radiate long discourses and saturated memories.

The series about Pyongyang "Red City" welcomes viewers with empty avenues and police women on intersections, managing the traffic of just several cars. Bus and tram stations, though are packed with people. A deli shop, richly decorated with multitude of flags of Noth Korea, politically charged billboards on streets, probably the deepest subway in the world, decorated in styled in socialist baroque, one of the highest arches of trioumph, massive monuments and condominia speak about the power of the state. Images of Hi-end hotels, historical monuments, SUVs, meant only for international visitors, will virtually bring to Lithuanian public to the Soviet times, when the dream and sweet aromas of luxury life was just a door away, but still unreachable.

Since in photographing in North Korean rural areas is not allowed, series “Red land” about the North Korean province was made of images, shot from the window of his sleeper-car compartment during the train journey. Endless agricultural landscapes, slow field labour of collective farm workers, in some pictures backed with red flags posted in the fields and silhouettes of people in the uniforms. The travelling, waiting, patroling military are among most featured actors in the "Red Land". Meanwhile country people hurry, carry large items of baggage and seem to live a life on the move.

Liu Yuan's pictures are more than just clicks. A picture of a filled bus, with faces leaning over several windows, and another one with railway station platform, an opened door of a train wagon and a  heaps of shape-less packages, including something in Heineken box and a guitar, promise an adventurous journey through North Korea...

Liu Yuan from Red Land, views of Nort Korean province, 2008

F Galerija is an independent non profit photographic gallery, opened in 2004 by NGO "Šviesos raštas" and UAB "Kauno liftai". The selection of recent exhibitions at F Galerija reflects the newest tendencies in photography when imagery, formerly considered picture stories for press, is now coming to meet the audience in art spaces. The exhibiton about North Korea is shown after an exhibition of Kaunas Photo festival, "Whale Wars Antarctica, 2010" by Australian photographer Glenn Lockitch.

F Galerija is located in the upper station of Žaliakalnis funicular, engineering heritage site of Kaunas, second biggest Lithuanian city.

+370 650 77895, info@light.lt