“It is impossible to travel alone in North Korea. As soon as you arrive, two guides pick you up. In reality, they act like
policemen. They look at each of your actions, each of your movements; you are not allowed to do anything without them.
They prevent you from speaking with anybody. As my two guards said it was forbidden to take any photographs, I
decided to photograph them and to write their comments.” Patrick Swirc
DPKR is an unusual travelogue, depicting Patrick Swirc’s difficult journey through North Korea. Whilst it appears to
depict only that constricted version of the country he was ‘allowed’ to see, his photographs in fact offer a searing insight
into a country little documented by Western photographers.
Patrick Swirc was born in Saint-Etienne and studied at the Vevey School of Photography in Switzerland before
following a striptease artist to Pigalle. In Paris he began making portraits and worked as a press photographer,
including journals such as Libération, Elle, Télérama, Studio and Time Magazine. Since abandoning that work he has
pursued his obsession with distant parts of the world.
North Korea Confidence
von Patrick Swirc
