NEW YORK, NY.- This book presents CHE Onejoon's documentary projects, Mansudae Master Class and International Friendship. The projects traces the statues,monuments,and buildings built by North Korea in Africa from the 1970s to the present and the historical background. The North Korea's Mansudae Art Studio has constructed statues, monuments, and buildings in about 18 countries in Africa. Among them, roughly half of the countries received these constructions from Kim Il Sung free of charge. Behind this North Korean diplomatic strategy of offering statues, monuments,and buildings toAfrica,therewas a diplomatic competition between North and South Korea in United Nations.

This book deals with the historical background and critical writings about Mansudae Master Class and International Friendship as a documentary project, including the essays of experts from various fields such as history, photography, art history, and art criticism, among others.

Excerpt from Long-Distance Friendships. Rendering Visible the Invisible Stories in Che Onejoon’s Practice by Inga Lāce:

My first encounter with CheOnejoon’s work took place in a studio visit in Amsterdam several years ago. I remember watching fragments of his three-channel video Mansudae Master Class (2013– ongoing) and being forthe firsttime introduced to the relationship between North Korea and African countriesin the 1970s and 1980s. This relationship, which was slowly taking shape in front of me through Che’s work,was two-fold.There were immense statues of African leaders made by North Korean artists and supported by the North Korean dictator, installed in many African countries, leaving a permanent marker in the public space and in the perception of its inhabitants. On the other hand, there was an impressive number of gifts, often small in scale, flowing back to Korea from, among others, the African leaders, meant for the dictator of North Korea. In Che’s work the first part of this relationship is unveiled in a three-channel investigative documentary which we watched while engaging in a lively discussion about other instances of cultural diplomacy, the military relationship that often comes with it, as well as the politics of gift giving. Meanwhile, the second part of the relationship is manifested as photographic prints of exceedingly impractical objects symbolically containing an essence ofthe represented countries, in the series International Friendship: The Gifts from Africa (2017–2018).

CHE Onejoon (b.1979) is a visual artist and filmmaker. One of his first projects involved photographing Seoul’s red-light district, which began to decline afterthe anti-prostitution law took effect in 2004.He also made short films and archives that capture the trauma of modern Korean history by documenting the ruins of the global Cold War. In recent years, Che worked on a documentary project about the monuments and statues made by North Korea for many sub-Saharan African nations.His on-going project seeks to create a photographic work, film and installation about Afro-Asian culture and identity. Che has exhibited internationally at the Taipei Biennial (2008), Palais de Tokyo modules (2012), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2014), the Seoul Media City Biennale (2014), the New Museum Triennial (2015), the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Afrika (2015), the Busan Biennale (2018), the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art Survival Kit 10.1 (2019), Jakarta Biennale(2021), and others. Che was a fellow of 2013 Sommerakademie Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam 2017–2018.