THE WAR MONUMENT

Photographic Series: North Korea, 2017 The Monument to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War in Pyongyang rises prominently outside the eponymous museum, a sculptural homage to the Korean People’s Army. At its heart, the Victory Statue captures a soldier triumphantly raising the North Korean flag, emblematic of the state’s enduring narrative of heroism. Completed in 1993 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Korean War’s end, the ensemble of statues evokes pivotal battles and commemorates the army’s diverse branches with austere monumentality. Nearby, on the banks of the Taedong River, the captured U.S. Navy spy ship USS Pueblo silently reinforces the site’s symbolic weight, a tangible relic of conflict and national pride.