Mansudae Master Class
2013–2016
Video, photography
Three-channel video, HD, 41'17"
Che Onejoon (1979) is a visual artist and filmmaker who started his career as an evidence photographer during military service. Che has been making short films that capture the trauma of modern Korean history by documenting bunkers in Korea in the wake of the Korean War and abandoned U.S. Army camps in South Korea after the Iraq War. In recent years, he has produced a documentary project called Mansudai Master Class, which is about the monuments and statues made by North Koreans in Africa. Based on this project, he is currently creating a film and installation about North Korean propaganda culture and identity. Che has participated in the Taipei Biennial, the Palais de Tokyo modules, SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, the Venice Architecture Biennale and the New Museum Triennial, among other major exhibitions. He was a fellow artist at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, and at the moment is based in Seoul.
Since 1960, the North Korean government has constructed many buildings, monuments, and statues in Africa. These architectural structures have been covered by the international press since 2010, when the African Renaissance Monument was inaugurated in Senegal. Che began intensive research on the subject in 2012 for a documentary film that is focused in particular on the buildings made by North Korea, free of charge, for African countries in the 1970s. To date, North Korea has constructed buildings, monuments, and statues in eighteen African countries, roughly half of which received the free-construction benefits offered by Kim Il-sung. Behind this North Korean diplomatic strategy lies a competition between North and South Korea, something not generally known in either the Western world or Africa.
cheonejoon.com