After two successful shows in London, Chris Barrett’s and Gianluca Spezza’s thoughtful take on North Korean media moves to Nottingham:
ICONS OF RHETORIC | 북한의 수사학 아이콘
Looking In, With a View to Looking Out
North Korea reinterpreted on instant film
DATE: Thu 18 Jun 2015 – Fri 10 Jul 2015
TIME: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 5 pm
Bonington Gallery | Nottingham Trent University | Bonington building | Dryden Street | Nottingham NG1 4GG | www.boningtongallery.co.ukA joint exhibition by photographer Chris Barrett and researcher Gianluca Spezza
Under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, North Korea has made a conscious decision to be more proactive in the media world. In 2013 we saw the very first live tweeted image of the North Korean leader, from mainstream Western media.
Icons of Rhetoric offers a different approach to documenting North Korea, merging established news media practices with more contemporary ones, drawing particular attention to social media.
“While researching an article about an Instragram account claiming to be the official outlet of North Korean news, I started to think about the visual representation of North Korea.
The idea of the project became a reflection on our engagement with modern media techniques, our consumption of images and our knowledge of this ‘most closed off country in the world’ that is the DPRK, all this interwoven with the notion of democratized propaganda.”
Chris Barrett, photographer and curator
By reinterpreting images that already exist in the public domain, Icons of Rhetoric plays on an aesthetic of authenticity.
For more information about Icons of Rhetoric research project visit the website.
Follow #IconsofRhetoric on social media:
@IconsofRhetoric
@KazakhPilot (Gianluca Spezza)
facebook.com/IconsOfRhetoric
instagram.com/iconsofrhetoric
