Images of spectacular mass games captured in secretive North Korea
Despite being in a secretive state, British photographer Jeremy Hunter captured images of North Korea's spectacular Arirang mass games
In a gigantic stadium, an audience of 150,000 enjoys a 120-minute spectacle, with tickets costing as much as €300 (HK$3,000). The show itself, boiled down from 250-million man hours of gymnastic effort, features spectacular scenes of seamlessly choreographed human mosaics followed by a grand fireworks display as the finale.
For British photographer Jeremy Hunter, however, North Korea will forever be associated with the Arirang, sometimes translated as the mass games.
While most of the small number of media workers who have made it to Pyongyang have had to conceal their identity, Hunter openly set out to capture images of the Arirang. In the process, he also managed to gather an insight into the divide between the regime "loyalists" and the "peasants" during his nine-day stay.
"It is incredible - every breath of every performer was co-ordinated … it [Arirang] eliminated individual will," said Hunter, a Unesco-award winner who has spent 35 years photographing rituals and ceremonies in 65 countries across five continents.
Every breath of every performer was co-ordinated … it eliminated individual will
Each of the show's scenes - which changed every 20 seconds - consists of about 100,000 performers, including 50,000 teenagers in the background and members of the military moving in the foreground. Each of the performers holds a flip chart of 150 pages to form collective pictures.