The photographer Xiomara Bender has traveled to North Korea with her camera for over ten years. The result is an extraordinary glimpse into a country that is otherwise sealed off. These impressive photographs will be on view from the beginning of October at the Leica Gallery Zingst.

Like hardly any other Western photographer, Xiomara Bender has managed over the past ten years to visit, get to know, and document hermetically sealed-off North Korea multiple times. While her first trip had to follow the predetermined dramaturgy of a state-organized tour, on numerous later visits she was able to break away from the prescribed routes. She wanted to form her own picture of this seemingly faceless country in order to discover the real stories behind its carefully constructed façade, those of worries and fears, of wishes and longings, of individual happiness as opposed to collective bliss.

“My work seeks those moments when the personal shines through, unposed, unprotected, authentic. Nine journeys between 2011 and 2019 gave me the opportunity, with patience and openness, to approach a country that so rarely allows itself to be touched. At first, it was just a shy glance, little more than a reflex of insecurity. But over the years, encounters emerged, of quiet warmth, of trust, of dignity. Sometimes it is a smile that doesn’t want to prove anything. Sometimes it is a gaze that doesn’t turn away. And sometimes it is the natural self-evidence with which individuality claims space, even where it is not intended.

We look at the courage of the women in Iran, we share the hopes of those in Saudi Arabia for change. We observe, we react, and in the best case, we empathize. Because attention is more than an act of seeing; it is an expression of responsibility. And empathy always begins with the willingness to look more closely.

But what distinguishes the people of North Korea from those in other countries under repressive conditions? Perhaps only our gaze. My photography is an attempt to change that gaze, to decouple it from ideology, headlines, and projection. What remains is the human being. No poster, no symbol, but a counterpart.” Xiomara Bender