The conceptual work: ‘The North Korean office of Tourism’ is a cultural, political approach to start the conversation about deceit and power structures behind contemporary propaganda.

My purpose as the artist is to show my audience that ‘manipulating the public’ is a common and timeless practice. I’ve built the installation three different times, with 100 posters as a recurring element. One of those times was during a Dutch art festival: Parksessies.

During that festival, the installation was perceived as a pop-up booth of a real tourist bureau. We told the public that they could win a trip to North Korea if they would pose in front of a camera with a sign that - without them knowing - had the text: ‘free North Korea’, on it. We would later post those pictures on Facebook. Letting them, in sense, join in my political agenda.

With this work/performance, I wanted to open the eyes of people from all generations: what the influence of (social) media is on propaganda and what online freedom means; the freedom to filter what’s true and what’s not (fake news).