Pioneers of the Times: North Korea’s Claim to Contemporaneity circa 1989
Cold WarCouncil of European National Youth Committees (CENYC)Global contemporaryLim Su-kyungNorth KoreaWorld Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY)World Festival of Youth and Students
Douglas Gabriel | Acta Asiatica Varsoviensia (AAV) 30 (2017) | Pages: 44–65Abstract
This article examines the discourse and visual culture surrounding the Thirteenth World Festival of Youth and Students, which took place in Pyongyang in July 1989. I show how the visual ephemera, performances, and architectural monuments connected to the event served as a call to acknowledge the prevailing effects of the Cold War era at a historical moment widely heralded as marking a definitive thaw in Cold War tensions and the emergence of the so-called global contemporary period.
