North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Roland de Courson: Photographing the demilitarized zone’s unseen stories

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

In this episode, Agence France-Presse (AFP) global news editor Roland de Courson joins the podcast to discuss his photo-and-essay project — K-Scar — documenting life, memory and tourism along the inter-Korean border.  De Courson explains why he describes the border as a “scar” and reflects on how indifference, curiosity and commercialized “dark tourism” shape the […]

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slash solutions today. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O'S Wetsuit, and today it is Monday, the 5th of January, 26. It's a new year, happy new year. And today I am joined in the studio by Roland de Coursonne, who is a French journalist born in Madrid. He started his career in Canada and joined Agenz France Press, or AFP, in 1994. He's currently a global news editor in Seoul.

And for over two years, Roland traveled along the Korean division, the Demilitarize Zone, to document it for his K-scar project, which is now online at k-scar.com. Roland, welcome on the show. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. Roland, what is this project? And how did you come up with the name? Well, good question.

The name, K-scar, I was afraid it was a bit provocative at the beginning because, well, you know, K-pop, K-K. K-food, everything. Right, there are many K-things. There are many K-things. And when I arrived in Korea three years ago, I knew nothing about Korea. I came here completely by accident. And of course, one of the most striking aspects of Korea for a foreigner is this division, this border, which is just less than 50 miles from here, from all this modernity,

which is a tourist attraction, as well as the most fortified and most dangerous place in the world, as Bill Clinton said. So it was fascinating. And of course, I started documented, starting with the tourist zones where everybody goes. And then, I mean, it appeared that this border, which I didn't know anything about, was much more a deeper thing than all these tourist places that people go to where I went to also also as a tourist. And so, I mean, that struck my interest. Yeah. And after months and after years of traveling around the border, I came with this name K. Scar because it's a scar.

I mean, it's ugly, it's insightful, it's painful, it's deep. I mean, there's no other word that came to my mind to describe this 150 kilometers scar across the one single country. Right. And as you write on your website, it's a scar across a beautiful face. Yes, yes, yes. Korea is a beautiful country. I mean, everybody likes Korea. It's fashionable.

It's this K-pop industry. It's a power. A cultural powerhouse now in the world. world, but still there's this car that's really close from here and that some people just don't want to see it. And have you always been a photographer? No, actually, I'm a text journalist. I came to photography late in life for other reasons.

But I mean, I'm mainly a global news editor, which means I'm sitting on a chair all the time in front of a computer. I don't go out much. My job is about global news editing, which means I work a lot about Venezuela, about Gaza, about Ukraine. but I'm in Korea and after some months doing that I say wow I'm in Korea but I don't my job doesn't have anything to do with Korea so that was a way to to just connect a little bit more with my host country and to do something I hope it's meaningful great that makes sense now you

describe a range of reactions across the border a real spectrum from extreme absurdity to extreme sadness and even voyeurism and I want to later on we'll tease out some of the different aspect, but what human feeling do you think most defines South Korea's relationship to the North today, and how did you try to photograph that feeling? Well, the feeling that comes to my mind first is the most difficult to photograph to. It's indifference, indifference or apathy. I mean, how do you photograph apathy, huh? That's very deep.

It's almost impossible to photograph apathy. Because the real apathetic people wouldn't go to the Demilitarizer, right? No, so you wouldn't be able to get in one frame an apathetic, a truly apathetic South Korean and the demilitarized zone. Yeah, but I mean, when you travel to this border zones, most of people who go there are aging people, are old people, there are veterans, they are like activists, they're foreign tourists, but you hardly see young people visiting the border. And maybe that's the way to photograph apathy.

I mean, I'm not going to tell all old people are apatic. But I mean, it's, it's so you Korea has a very young image. You have this, have soul with all this K-pop. of these really modern things, and then you have this Cold War border with only old people going to it. I mean, that's a way to describe a situation. Now, as a journalist, how did you navigate the ethics of photographing people, looking at other people, often farmers across the river, through telescopes and phone cameras? What made an image feel respectful rather than exploitative?

I mean, everybody looks at, I mean, I don't think it's condemnable to look at North Korea. I mean, all these observatories are there for that, and people who go at the border are obviously curious about what's happening in front. I don't think I lack respect photographing people watching North Korea because, I mean, it's a natural curiosity. There's nothing wrong about watching the northern neighbor. And, yeah.

Okay, now what about commercial exploitation of the demilitarizer? Tell us about the different kinds that you've noticed and how have you come to see it? Well, that's the first thing like strobe me when I visited the border. Like everybody, I took a DMZ tour with a bustload of tourists. And, yeah, like most people, I found it a little bit like a fairground spectacle, you know, like this Imjinag place where there's an amusement park right next to the civilian control zone. There's this, now there is a North Korean center in Imjingak where you can just talk to a North Korean defector.

I mean, it's a little bit like a human zoo for me. I visited also this place and by chance the North Korean defectors who were there were just very, very interesting and it was a very nice experience. But I mean, all this exploitation sounds a bit weird. And that's the original purpose was to photograph this. I mean, I had even a title. I was going to call it DM Zoo, you know, like to show all the weird things, the Instagram spots and the version of the militarized border, all these people taking selfies in front of minefields. But of course, this is a very, very limited aspect of the border. It's just a few places near Seoul where

everybody goes. And this border, of course, is much more than these few places. Indeed. Yeah, but focusing on those very few touristy parts, so what surprised you about how ordinary South Koreans fold the division of Korea into weekend leisure? And were there any conversations that changed or challenged your view? Not really. I mean, it's normal when you have something like this to exploit it commercially. I mean, lots of people along the border regions, which are not very economically developed, depend on border tourism to survive. I think about the Unification Village in Padua, which relies on these tourist shops. And when the civilian control zone closes for some reason because their military tensions, it's dramatic for these areas because they just lose almost all their income for a few days.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm not judging. I mean, I don't like to judge. I'm a journalist. My job is not judging the countries where I am. My job is to show, and then everybody can make his or her own judgment. I've been taking DMZ tours too at the beginning. I mean, I'm not ashamed. It's not a shame to take a DMZ tour. At the contrary, it's important. Did you also have a chance to take a Panmunjong tour into the Trues village, which is now inaccessible? I mean, we saw recently, I think, some ministry, maybe the Ministry of Unification said that

such tours will probably not go ahead again, or maybe it was the American military. Anyway, have you ever been to Pan Mon Jom itself? Yes, I've been in Pan Mujum a couple of times. The first time many years ago when I first visited Korea. But so the only pictures, unfortunately, that I have of this joint security area is the one I took, like, very long time ago. As you say, it has been closed for years after a defection from a... The Travis King incident.

I mean, it's too bad. It's close, but what can we do? I mean, we're in an area that people like making selfies and making stupid things just to gain likes, and nobody wants an idiot to cross the military demarcation line with a selfie stick just to make likes. It's reasonable to close these tours, but, I mean, it's sad. But for me, that's the sort of the ground zero of where commercial exploitation meets against security concerns and maintaining of the armistice, that this was for decades the main place where money could be made, from Korea's division, right? Yeah.

There were tourism companies in Seoul that would charge easily more than $100 U.S. dollars for a day tour up to Pan Mon Jhaman back again. So having worked in that industry, I used to be a tour guide, I know that the cost to enter the Demilitarize zone is zero, right? So the UNC receives no money from these tours. So it was almost a completely all profit.

All you had to pay for as a tour company was the guide, the bus, the bus driver, and the lunch fare. And everything else was free. So it was, and there was a small charge to enter Imjingak, I think from the Kyeongidore government or the Paijin government. Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting case of whether, in this case, the desire to continue that commercial exploitation has been trumped, so to speak,

by the security concerns. Yeah, well, the commercial exploitation continues anyway because of many other places. There's Imjingak. And I'm sure somebody will find a way to continue this exploitation, because there's a real curiosity about the DMZ, about the border. We are in an area of dark tourism, people like watching dark things. And, well, the GSA is close to tourism now, but there will be something else. There's a striking photo on your website, KSkyar.com, of a visitor posing with a cup of coffee and North Korea in the background.

Yeah. What did that moment tell you about normalization of distance, how the border becomes scenery? Yeah, well, that's the Starbucks at Egibon Eco Park, where Starbucks are like, year ago, I think. It's a little bit. It's very recent. And well, it's, I mean, of course, it strikes you when you see somebody take his cappuccino and photographing North Korea on the other side. But the most striking part is that the lady on that picture is Chinese. I mean, there are lots of Chinese tourists. And as you, as everybody knows, China was on the other side of the, was the enemy of South Korea. And now you have this tourists coming from

China and photographing their former ally from the former enemy with a cup of Starbucks. I mean, it's... Right. We're using, yeah, capitalist American Starbucks. And it should point out that in Panmunjom tours to the JSA, Chinese tourists have never been allowed, but there is the, what I call the lesser tour, the DMZ tour, the DMZ tour, that goes to the third tunnel, Dora San Observatory and sometimes Dora San Station and also, of course, Imginga.

And that has been a real money spinner. You know, when I used to work in the tourism industry. 2010, 2011, the bus car park at the third tunnel place was full of mostly Chinese tour buses. So 30, 40, sometimes 50 Chinese tour buses per day would go through there. Because that's as close they could get. They couldn't go to Panmenjohn, but now they can go to the Starbucks at Eggyvon. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing.

And also all this, like a tourist gadgets, paraphernalia, key rings in a form of bullets and grenades. all made in China. I mean, it's very ironic to think about. Well, the other irony is I think there may be, we won't know unless we asked them, but of all the Chinese tourists that come to South Korea, there may be a small subset of those Chinese tourists who have, in fact, been to North Korea and have seen the demilitarized zone and Panmunjong from the other side,

looking from North Indus. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever meet any of those? No, well, the last time I went to Panmenjom was a long time. And I saw Chinese tourists on the other side of the border there, well, having a tour at the same time than us. But I mean, yeah. But the lady at Egibong, for example, that's... She could have been, she could have earlier been to North Korea and then come to...

Probably, probably, but yeah, the only people who can do that. And yeah. Was Egibong the place for you that this is, by the way, for those who haven't been there, it's west of Gimpur, one of the northernmost points on the Korean mainland, so not including the islands of Kjordungdo and Pengongdo. And from there, you can get a look over into... into Kersong and a village nearby. And for me, that's a place that, where the tourist gaze feels the most complicated. My first visit to Egibong was in 98 or 99, so before the millennium. And I met an old man there whose hometown was, in fact, Kersong. So he had come south as a refugee,

perhaps during the war. And he was visiting there with his adult daughter. She spoke English. I think she'd lived in America. He did not. And my Korean then was useless. So we spoke. in English. And she explained that, you know, he'd not been back to his hometown, obviously, since the Korean War. And so this Egibong, this place was where he would come to look across the border at the hometown that he could never go back to again. This is 25 years ago. So I'm almost certain the man is dead now. But, you know, that was a very sad moment because, you know, that's for his generation who came from North Korea, that's all they could do is go to place like Imginga or Egibong, look across and wonder, you know,

as any of my family is still alive, will I ever get to go back there? In his case, he didn't. So that's a very complicated, you know, I was there for the interest and for fun, and he was there for that human tragedy, that that scar across the people, which. And was that for you, the place that was the most complicated? Not really most complicated, but the most absurd, I think. I went to Egibong to before the Starbucks open, and it was completely, there was nobody there. I mean, it was a very, very humble place.

And as you say, there were like lots of people who came there just to see North Korea because their ancestors were there, because their family was split into two countries. And just a few months apart, you had this Starbucks and now you have like, I think, like thousands of thousands of people coming there every year. So it's weird. But once again, I'm not judging. I don't like judging foreign countries where I live in. But if some people can make money with this, why not?

I mean, the north part of Gimpot is not a very developed area. It's a very interesting place where Egibong remains a very important place. interesting place because you have a fantastic view of North Korean villages. It's just, wow. Once you see this, it's really, really amazing. I mean, I remember going there. It was completely foggy and there were still these like noises of North Korean, like, nightmareish soundtracks. And you didn't... When South Korea was playing pop music, North Korea was playing like animal sounds. Animal sounds and... Yeah, and gunshots and everything and it was very foggy and all

of a sudden you saw North Korea like appearing with all these strange soundtracks of horror movies and it's really, really striking. It's a very fantastic place, but well, there's a Starbucks. Yeah, that's right. Good for them, but I mean, you can always, you can see the border the way you like. You don't need to have a Starbucks and photograph it in front of North Korea. You can just go there and then watch it. And just a few minutes from Egibong, there's like Yodongdo or Ganghua or Ganghua where like

you have. observatories, which are much more humble, as you say. Yeah, Kiyodongdo is basically a hill with a truck that sells coffee. It's much more humble. And you can look right across. And it's what Egi Bong and Kjodong do and perhaps also Kangwondo, some of the very few places where you can actually see North Korean humans, you know, North Korean people doing things, actually doing farming, doing work, construction work, etc.

Yeah. And yeah, that's where you meet. I went there during Chusok, the autumn holiday. And there were many people like praying their ancestors who had been left the other side. And I met still a few dozens of Koreans in Yodong-do come from the other side. They just crossed the river during the war and they went back.

So you were able to meet some of these people who were still from that generation. So they haven't all passed away. They haven't all passed away. There's still few of them. I went there for AFP, for my company, to do a report on that and yeah but first lot many people left and obviously nobody's very interested about them i think in korea so they were just surprised i just came from

a foreign land and to meet them i met you spoke with them i spoke well i don't speak korean unfortunately but i had some translation i could i could i could speak to them and it's always very very moving the stories they have to tell i mean there are refugees from 80 years ago 70 years ago and they tell you exactly the same stories that an afghan refugee or uh I don't know. Koreanian refugee can tell you now. It's the same. I mean, it's exactly the same.

I met also former refugees in the eastern part of Korea, in Sokcho, in Abai village. It's a village. It's one of the places I liked the most during this project is Abai village, which is a settlement created during the war by North Korean refugees that settled there in the hope of going back home someday. 70 years later, they're still waiting. Wow. And there's just 10 of them left alive. And I met one of them, and it was, I mean, what he told me was so, so moving.

I mean, he was poor. He was stealing things because he didn't have anything to eat. He was, I mean, it's exactly the same story than a refugee anywhere in the world now. And you say, well, history doesn't change. It doesn't change, yeah. Now, let's talk about everyday life along the de-military zone. You photographed families, cyclists, sunflower fields, life continuing in the shadow of the north and a possible future war. What small, quiet human rituals did you notice that outsiders usually miss?

I mean, I like all this, I would like, also say the dressing of the border, the way you just mitigate it with art projects, with gardens. In Gjodong, there's a fantastic sunflower festival taking place in August, September, which is just in front of North Korea. And it's, I mean, I photographs like beautiful sunflowers and just away from North Korean mountains. And all these things, it seems like the people in the border. just want to, not to hide, but maybe to mitigate the barbed wire fences, the military checkpoints and all these painful things with beautiful projects. There's lots of arts too along the border.

That's really amazing too. Your website also mentions people cycling near anti-tank obstacles in the rice fields. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so there's lots of tourism, not like we talked before, like dark tourism, but like ecological projects. I mean, it's a way of exploiting the border in a way to make it maybe lighter, make it less. make it less painful. Did people who live near the DMZ experience or express different attitudes towards you

compared to, say, visitors from Seoul? They were really amazed I was interested in them. Most of the time, I mean, they say, why is a foreigner interested in our lives if Korean usually don't, are not bad interested? So, yeah, they were usually, like, positively interested, a bit reluctant at the beginning, but most of the time, like, very grateful for me.

I had come there to see them. Did they talk about inconveniences or fear from either the noises played by North Koreans or the balloons at that time that were coming over? Yeah, most of the complaints I heard were about the noises, which now have stopped, gratefully. But, yeah, of course, it's a very inconvenient life, especially in the Unification Village in Padju, where, I mean, people are farming always under military supervision. They have to go through military checkpoints when they want to go out and come in,

and sometimes the civilian control line is closed. So, yeah, it's a very inconvenient life, but, I mean, it's their hometown, and they don't want to move anywhere else. You just mentioned the civilian control line. Let's talk about that. So in explaining the demilitarized zone on your website, you write that separation between the two careers is in fact made up of a series of layers of which the demilitarized zone is the core one, but not the only one.

So there's also the civilian control zone. Tell us a bit about that. And most of people from abroad, when they think about the career, border, I think of the DMZ, which is the most known part. But it's a very larger border. There's these civilian control zones from on both sides, I think, in the northwest. The military no-go zone, too. And then after the civilian control zones, there's this development, special development

areas for border regions. And, yeah, it's a very moving border. People continue to live in the civilian control zone in some places, some villages. I think there are eight of them left. People continue to buy land in the civilian control zone. That's what I was really amazed by that to learn that because, I mean, who would like to buy a land in the military? No man's land. And it seems that many people bought some land there during the Shonson policy, like some of the speculation.

Speculating that Korea will be reunified or at least that there will be more exchanges between the two Koreas. And now, of course, they're starting to think the investment was not really worth it. But, yeah, it's a very living border. I don't even want to focus on the military things. I mean, of course, the military aspect is crucial. And the border is an essential thing. But the work of photographing the military has already been done by many people. You have this Zhongwu book, photo book, who came out 10 years ago, which is fantastic.

He's a guy who spent like three years inside the DMZ with the South military. And, I mean, you cannot compete with that. It was really great. So I wanted to focus more on daily life things, on people living near the border, on all these problems they have. living in the civilian control zone, etc. You mentioned the unification village, or Tomilchon, which is in the civilian control zone. Did you also get to access the village of Pehsong Dong within the demilitarized zone, which literally, you know, if you walk too far, you're over the demilitarized zone. Unfortunately not, because, yeah, as you, as we said before, all these areas are now completely super controlled by the military.

They don't want any civilian there because of attentions. And unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to go there, but I hope before I leave Korea, I will be able to have a look at it. Were you able as a foreign journalist to have special access to any places at all? No, not really. I mean, I've been to the places where everybody can go. For some things, in the civilian control zone, I went there with military permission and military escort and sometimes for doing stories for AFP, which was easier than going just by myself. Sure.

But, yeah, no, most of the time I didn't go to anywhere where anybody else can go. I mean, maybe in the neutral nation, supervisor commission camp in Pelman, I went there with a Swiss delegation. I think this was the only time where I just had a privilege access to a place. The rest of the time, I just take my car and take my shoes and just walk where everybody can go. Now, in the section on your website, airspace scares and blurry seas, actually two sections, the danger is largely invisible. Flight paths, maritime cat and mouse, distant boats. How did you translate invisible risk into approachable images and how did viewers on the shore read those scenes? Well, for airspace is the most difficult because, of course, air is not easy to photograph.

But I had the chance. For years, I tried to take a picture of North Korea from a plane taking off in Sean. And you have to be very lucky because the plane has to take off in the right direction. Then it has to turn on the right direction. Then you have to sit on the right side of the plane. Yes. In the right weather conditions. In the right weather conditions.

And it's very difficult. But finally, after a dozen attempts, I could photograph the whole border area from above and that's where you realize that the border is really close from Incheon and from Seoul. And most people express surprise, especially Koreans, they say, oh, wow, we didn't. We take the plane all the time and we didn't realize that it was so close. And that's why the planes, whenever they take off towards the north, they just do a huge turn on the left, a huge U-turn on the left to avoid crossing into the forbidden airspace and the border. But nobody realizes that.

How close is the Inchon Airport to the demilitarizing? Well, the edge of the northern edge of the runway, I think it's 35 kilometers straight to the military demarcation line. Well, it's not the MDL, it's Hangang estuary. Right, yeah. Han River estuary, yes. But it's really, really close. You could quickly be there if you flow straight ahead. I believe you talked to a commercial airline pilot in the process of doing your project.

What did you learn from that pilot? Well, he was surprised by my question. He said, yeah, I've been in much more dangerous situations than in Sean. I mean, there's always a radar beacon, which is all the ways and which pilots do not cross by any means. Yeah. And he said, yeah, it's just like taking off in front of a mountain. You just have to turn and that's it. And for pilots, it's nothing.

But, I mean, when you realize what it is, it's amazing. Well, you tell one story on your website about a time in 2011. That's just the year after the shelling of Yon Pyong Door by North Korea, when a commercial airliner was actually shot at by Rwai. Republic of Korea Marines on the island of Kjordongdo? Yes, I learned lots of incidents like that, but I mean, by chance they were using, like, machine guns and not to like air air. So the anti-air cannons over that, no, so the bullets couldn't reach the plane.

But, I mean, these things happen, but they don't happen that often. I mean, since Incheon Airport was open like 25 or 30 years ago, I don't remember. 2001? 2005 years ago. So there have only been like a hand five or six incidents like that, and it's very few. But that means that these Marines thought it was an awful. Korean plane right yeah I mean that illustrates the tension that remains in the border I mean how can the marine shoot at their commercial plane yeah it's it's

it's not even look the same as a jet fighter well I don't know I don't I don't have many details about that story but yeah but yeah to tell us about the monthly right to flight exercise which is conducted in the joint security areas in the middle of the demilitaris own by the UN command yeah so once a month a UN command helicopter just lands a few meters from the border at the Panamun Joint Security Area, right next to the North Korean, which is, I mean, I think the military armistice agreement provides a provision saying that everybody can fly into the DMZ. So the US, I mean, the UN command is using this prerogative.

I don't think the North uses it for itself. But, yeah, I wanted to photograph this helicopter, but unfortunately I didn't. I wasn't granted permission. Yeah, because of all this, all of attention, actually. Let's talk about memory and mourning. You show the mass recovery of war remains, memorial walls, reconstructed grave markers. Which encounters around loss or remembrance stayed with you, and how did locals respond to your presence in those spaces?

There are several aspects about that. There's the South Korean cemeteries and the so-called enemy cemetery in Padua, which is a very unknown place where the rest of North Korean soldiers during the war are buried, and also the bodies of North Korean spies and infiltrators that were shot down in South Korea. Probably some Chinese soldiers, too, I imagine. The Chinese have all been repatriated to China a few years ago, and they're now in a cemetery in Shenyang, I think.

So only the North Korean remains there, and it's a very hidden place. You don't have any sign advertising it, and, of course, I was completely alone there. Yeah. But I could see there were some offerings, like Chinese liquors, Chinese cigarettes. So some people come to pay their respects to North Korean soldiers,

I don't know who it is. That's interesting. That's interesting. But yeah, so still somebody comes to remember these guys. On the South Korean side, I mean, I don't have much to say because it's the cemeteries where everybody can go and there are lots of them and there's national cemetery. And also I had the chance to visit the National Forensic Center in Ongi. Is that where they look at bones that they found? Like that's the last resort when they found a skeleton.

They usually able to identify it with DNA or with buttons. with buttons, with uniform, with weapons, that remains, so they can tell what the child the dead I belong to and maybe identify him. But in one Jew, they bring their last resort cases, the places where there are people who are the most difficult to identify. And they reconstruct their faces using the skulls with a computer program. And that's very, very interesting. Because you can see the face of the soldiers appearing all of a sudden.

And I learned that the first soldier that identified that way, a few months ago, had a daughter in South Korea that had never met him. So the daughter was called, and she could see the face of her father for the first time. Wow. And so many stories like that, so moving, so terrible. That's another kind of scar, isn't it? There's a scar. There's all kinds of scars, and I wanted to show all these aspects.

Now, I want to talk about nature. K. Scar. holds a paradox. You've got these sections, wildlife paradise and landmine health. How did people you met talk about the de militarized owners both a sanctuary and a scar? You know, you've got these beautiful cranes flying over the frozen wetlands, just a short walk from mine warnings and blast fences. Well, that's a narrative in the border region saying that DMZ is a wildlife paradise, which helps tourism maybe and helps economy. But, I mean, the only animals who are really, really at their ease in the DMZ are the mosquitoes. When you talk to health specialists, they say, yeah, the DMZ is a december.

DMZ is terrible because all these swamps and the places where mosquitoes are completely at their east because they have hundreds of wild boars and soldiers to feed on and they, there's no way to control malaria in these zones. Or Japanese encephalopalop? Yeah, yeah. Or I don't know, there's several diseases that only exist in the border area still. But yeah, I mean, yes, you can see these beautiful cranes in Toronto and this migratory world, but I don't think the DMZ is really a wildup sanctuary.

as people say. I mean, it's a heavily militarized zone. It's full of mines. It's full of people, weapons of unexploded ordinance, and which wild war would like to live there. I mean, well, when I worked in the tourism industry, my boss, who was a former, he was a retired U.S. military guy who had worked up in Panmenjong. He said, you know, they have a kind of a dark humor. They joke that the demilitarized zone is full of three-legged deer. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, you, you, I don't know if they have three leg deers much, but they're still full of mines. And not so long ago, during the night,

there were always, like, huge lights illuminating the DMZ. But now they don't need to keep them because of night vision cameras and etc. But, I mean, it was full of noise, full of light, full of landmines. It was not very peaceful place to be a wild animal there. When I visit the Demilatrazana, I'm always reminded that, as well as the mosquitoes that you mentioned, that birds can come and go freely between the two. Koreas. They don't, you know, birds don't respect political divisions. Is that something that you

reflected on and the people that you saw there? Did you see any bird watchers? Yeah, birds flee a big role in the imaginary in Korea and border areas. You know, in Yodong, the birds are cherished because they are supposed to be the messengers between the north and the south. Yodongdo is a place where lots of North Koreans settled during the war and these, I think, they're swallows. Lots of swallows nests all across the island and they are just cherished like a messengers. from the north and the only creatures who are able to go back to the homeland. And, yeah, I didn't meet many birdwatchers. In the shore one was a huge birdwatching activity.

But, yeah. Chaudwin, which used to be North Korea before the war and now it's in South Korea. Yeah. And that brings me to my next question. Some sites that you go to, they're very heavily curated. There are museums with dioramas, there's reenactments. Others are a bit more raw. You know, you've got the ruined party headquarters in Chodwan.

You've got lists of people who were abducted, fishermen who were abducted from islands. What did you think was the most honest human reactions, anger, apathy or tears? And where did you see them? I mean, they're all a whole spectrum of reactions. I mean, when you visit an observatory, when I visit an observatory, I like to sit there and see which kind of people will come. And there's a huge array of people. You have school trips. You have tourists.

You have veterans. You have old people. You have rightist activists who come there and maybe to shout anti-communist slogans or something like that. So it's difficult to generalize about who's visiting these places. But, yeah, the area is interesting. I mean, families, schoolboys, schoolgirls, people, just ordinary people. I mean, there's no single, there's not a single type of visitor. I usually find these people very respectful.

I mean, I don't know what they feel because, unfortunately, I cannot speak Korean. So I cannot really understand the feelings they have when they look at Kongam Sang, for example, in the eastern part of Korea. But I can imagine what the feeling while watching. this inaccessible part of the country. What about yourself? Did you find yourself reacting emotionally to different places or different scenes? Some things are really emotional, yes.

Especially the places, as we talked before, where I meet like former refugees from North Korea. And their stories are really, really, really painful sometimes and very, very moving. About the border areas, I mean, usually they're very, militarized places. It's more impressive than moving, maybe more frightening than moving,

But when you meet the people who live in the border areas, that's where the real moving stories start to pop out. And that's really the most interesting part. The Swiss and Swedish soldiers that you met at the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, how do they live in this weird place here? Do they sort of try to focus on photo posters of home? Or, you know, how do they sort of try to... Well, it's a very interesting place. This Swiss and Swedish camp is like a European enclave just next to the border.

I mean, the camp fence is actually the border. There's a military demarcation line sign just at the edge of the camp. And yeah, it's part of the surrealistic part of this border. I mean, it's an international zone. And you have this commission, which is doing their job faithfully since the armistice without any contact with North Koreans anymore. I mean, it's part of the absurdity of the border. Also, the hope that remains.

I mean, everybody hopes that these institutions, that were put up by the military administration will start working again. I mean, it's the actual hope of a Korean government to restart dialogue. But we are in a phase where there's no communication at all between two Koreas and all these institutions which were made for improving dialogue communications and for avoiding incidents there, and they don't do their work anymore. I mean, of course, they do their work. But if the North Koreans don't participate, what's the meaning of it?

Now, many observatories and frontline areas, they have their own rules, tone and accessibility. I believe it's often up to the division commander to decide on rules. So which places were the hardest to access or to work in and what human story made the effort worthwhile? I mean, it's very, very complicated to take pictures of these areas, because most of the time they're restricted. As you know, it's forbidden in Korea to take photos of facilities. And in Korea, too. And in Korea, I mean, a military facility can range from a radar to a rusty barbed by fence in the middle of nowhere. But sometimes doesn't make the job very easy.

Yeah, as you say, there are very different approaches. Some places nobody cares at all. I mean, they could take pictures of the border in Western Sea Islands or in Gjodong or in Ganghua without anybody bothering me. And then have this hugely monitored places, I think, in the punchbowl, in the LG observatory where you have to, yeah, they even put a sticker on your phone. They put a sticker on your vehicles, the dash cam. They just look under your vehicle not to bring anything forbidden on the other side.

And, yeah, the level of paranoia is very different. But the most amazing thing is like maybe the paranoia is more, the security measures are much stricter in the central part of Korea where there's almost any possibility of invasion because of the rough terrain and nobody can imagine there will be an attack taking place in this really difficult terrain. And in the West part, where there's flatlands and it's more relaxed. So it's very strange. It is.

Yeah. Now, your resources page on the website, KSkyar.com, shows that you've, You've read a lot and watched widely about the demilitar zone. What did you feel was missing in prior work that your project, Kayskar, tries to, a gap that your project tries to fill? There's been a lot of work on the military aspect of the border, I mean, which is very, very good work. I talked about Park Chung-W photography before, the DMZ,

where he spent like three years embedded into the South Korean forces inside the DMZ. And, I mean, that's a very, very complete piece of work about the border, about the DMZ and about the military. But I didn't see many works focusing on the human aspects, on the artistic aspects, and all the cultural aspects and the social aspects that define the border. I mean, what impressed me a lot during this project is all the arts works. I call it border subversion. It's a phenomenon that we knew in Berlin during the division of the Berlin Wall,

where people drew graffiti on the walls. There are lots of artists taking over the Mexicans. US border or the Israel-Palestinian wall or even Northern Ireland, you can see people like throwing graffiti and doing art along the border just to denounce it or to mitigate it. And in Korea, there's lots of things like that too, but it's a bit different. I mean, everybody knows, nobody wants to denounce the border because everybody knows it's there to protect the people from a rogue state on the other side. And so there's no denunciation like it could be in the Berlin Wall or like the US-Mexico was.

But most of the time sponsored by the authorities or encouraged by the authorities. And I mean, it's amazing. It shows that the pain is still there, that people try to mitigate it. For example, transforming former anti-tank obstacles in the works of art. You have lots of those in Quatton area in Chorwon. There's also the most amazing place I've been, was a bunker in Padua. That has been, well, it's a real bunker where military exercises take place sometimes. It has been taken over by an artist who exhibits his works in the bunker

and drawings about division, about, it's very interesting. It's very interesting. Is the bunker still used by the world? Yeah, two or three times a year he has to take everything out. And let the military do some training there because it's just in front of North Korea. I mean, it's in Jaiuro in Padu, and you just cross the motorway, and then there's the border fence and then there's North Korea. And you have this bunker there full of works of art. And I mean, it's the most, maybe a most striking aspect of this border subversion I could find along the border, but there are lots of them.

As I said, anti-tank obstacles transformed into tourist signs or works of art or like art peace parks everywhere in near the Peace Dam in Guadjon. All these decommissioned military tanks and missiles and planes that are transformed into works of art. It's a worldwide phenomenon to try subvert the border or to. to mitigate the border and this exists in Korea too, but it's extremely different from what you find in the other parts of the world where there are like inaccessible borders. Now, your project spans a couple of years, 2024 and 2025, and you're showing different seasons, different places, rules, different attractions. What did you feel changed in that period of two years in maybe in the reactions of South Korean people looking across the border?

Did you see the tensions or political moves or election? Did they alter the mood at the fence line? Yes, I think when I arrived, well, it was during the COVID area, so it was already very, very restricted, but not for security reasons, but for health reasons. Yeah. But, yeah, I think the previous administration in Korea, there was lots of tension at the border at that time,

and it was I arrived before all these soundtracks, sound awards. Oh, yeah. Started again, but, yeah, you had this huge sound mess on the border. The places were restricted. I mean, you could take pictures more. Easily, I think, when I arrive and now, lots of places like the Dollar Observatory have been forbidden to photographers. And it has been very, lots of places where it was easy to photograph before or becoming more difficult to work at. And, well, I hope the tension is just now, but I can just go to places I couldn't go before.

Yeah, if you could add a new section on your website tomorrow or next week, where would you like to go and what would you like to photograph first? I would like to go on the north side of the border to see how it is. Yeah, unfortunately, it was quite relatively easy for a journalist before to travel to North Korea. FP had a brewer over, and we had lots of, well, we still have a bureau there. And we have had lots of missions of people going to Pyongyang almost every month. Unfortunately, now it's completely finished. Have you sent any requests? We are sending requests all the time, but they are completely ignored.

Yeah, but, I mean, it's how it is. Were there any moments where you chose not to photograph a person because their human reaction demanded privacy? Not really. Of course, I didn't photograph any military because it's forbidden. And if I foot by accident a picture of a military's face, I just blur it because it's law. But I didn't have any human reactions, hostile reactions. I mean, Koreans don't like to be photographed in general. I noticed that happens in the streets, so it's the same thing at the border. But normally, people are kind of easygoing. After finishing this project, what did it leave with you? What has it done to you emotionally?

Is there anything that sticks with you? It's very obsessive when you start to think about this border. I didn't know Korea at all when I came here, and now I have an impression to understand a little bit better the Korean mentality. Even if most Koreans don't want to speak about it or are not comfortable or thinking of it or just want to ignore the division, I mean, it's still something that remains in the country's sce.

And that's interesting. And usually, when I talk to Koreans about that, the first reaction is, oh, I didn't know the half of what you're telling me about the border. And then they sometimes become very emotional about it. So there's this apparent indifference or apathy, but it's not, it's on surface, I think. It's something deeper. Do you see it as part of a bigger story about humanity or is it something very specifically Korean? I think it's very specifically Korean.

I mean, worlds and borders exist all around the world, but this is very special. There's no other border separating a single people, a single language, and for so many years and making the same country tear apart and becoming more and more different as the time passes until it becomes irreversible. It's a very sad story. But you have this Mexico-U.S. border. You have immigration problems.

It's a completely different story. But this story is just crazy. It doesn't make any sense. Full of sadness. Is there anything that I forgot to ask you about that you'd like to share with our listeners today? Not really. I just hope that the border will become more accessible to the public.

I mean, it's a very, very difficult thing to ask for, but of course there was all this border tourism and border dark tourism before, which is being restricted now. I think it's important that people go there and see what happens and don't focus on Korea only in a K-pop and K-culture place, but also see the dark side of the country

because it's very important. Koreans and non-Koreans alike. Well, thank you, Roland de Kurosan, for coming on the show. Thanks to you. I hope my terrible English didn't. We encourage all of our listeners to go to k-scar.com to have a look at your wonderful photographs and also read your essays and stories about them. Thank you very much.

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Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. our thanks go to Brian Betts and David Choi for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer Alana Hill, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions and fixes the audio levels. Thank you for listening and listen again next time.