Arts and Design

Park Jongwoo’s best photograph: unearthing bodies in Korea's DMZ


Heartbreak Ridge sits in the east of the demilitarised zone, a 160-mile-long stretch that has separated North and South Korea since the end of the war in 1953. It got its name from an American journalist who reported on a particularly bloody battle there in 1951. Thousands of Korean, Chinese, American and French soldiers died in the space of a month and yet very little was gained from the fighting. Countless bodies remain where they fell, preserved in the mud.

In the late 2000s, I was commissioned by the South Korean Ministry of National Defense and a national newspaper to photograph the DMZ to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950. I was the first civilian photographer to enter the region since the zone was established. I first went in 2009, but the process was tightly controlled and I was only ever allowed into the southern half. Every time I crossed the civilian control zone checkpoints, I was escorted by an armed military squad. Most roads in the DMZ are unpaved and almost unusable, and the eastern part is mountainous. Most days, I would have to travel for hours to reach a given location, and then trek the remaining distance.

Being in the DMZ was was one of the saddest experiences of my life. The Koreans who died in the war were not experienced soldiers. They were teenagers or in their early 20s, drafted from the street and sent to the frontline. Many were killed in their first two or three weeks of battle. The corpses that remain have never been formally buried or identified.

In this image, you can see army personnel from Makri, the government agency tasked with recovering and identifying war remains. Makri staff usually research battles using old documents and maps. Once they finalise the place where a battle occurred, they start to excavate with a shovel. If they find any war remains, they perform a short ceremony to commemorate the dead — a kind of makeshift funeral for people who never received one. Then they use fine brushes to clean the remains without damaging them.

Like this photo, many war remains are found with rifles and bullet clips, and the bodies lie in the exact position they fell, preserved in the mud, as if they are frozen in time. You can see that this soldier was killed by a bullet wound to the head. But apart from that, we knew nothing about him.

Once the bones are collected, Makri moves them to their headquarters to start DNA testing. They try to establish the body’s nationality, and then arrange the transfer of the remains to their country of origin — usually China, the US or the North. Once or twice a year, North Korea allows the delivery of war remains. It’s one of the few points of collaboration that remains in our divided country.

I was meant to spend two years documenting the DMZ, but my time was cut short. In March 2010, a North Korean torpedo sank a South Korean battleship near the border, killing half the crew. It was a major incident, and the North said they would shoot any journalist seen entering the DMZ. The South Korean government revoked my permission, and I have never since been allowed in. For this photo, which was taken in 2012, I had to zoom in using a telephoto lens from a nearby outpost.

One day, I hope to return and finish the project. I believe that photography has a significant role to play in explaining the human impact of the DMZ. It humanises the situation and reminds the world of what is lost by being a divided country.

For the older generation, the Korean war was the worst time of their life, but that memory seems to be fading. After a second and now a third generation, neither of which have ever known combat, the war is slipping from the public consciousness.

I don’t know what will happen to the DMZ in the future. The political situation is too unpredictable to tell. But I think collecting the war remains is the strongest barrier against another war.

DMZ: Demilitarized Zone of Korea by Park Jongwoo is published by Steidl.

Park Jongwoo’s CV

photographer Jongwoo Park for My Best Shot



Photograph: PR

Born: Seoul, South Korea, 1958.

Studied: BA in journalism, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies; MA in journalism, Chungang University.

Influences: Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, Ara Güler.

High point: “Being the first civilian photographer to document the DMZ since 1953.”

Low point: “The sinking of a South Korean battleship by a North Korean torpedo in March 2010 ruined relations between the countries and I was not allowed to enter DMZ again.”

Top tip: “Photographers record visual history; anything can be a history.”



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