Couples Therapy: North / South Korea

There is still no peace treaty between North and South Korea, only a ceasefire after the US- and Soviet-backed war between 1950 and 1953.
Families were divided, the economy, politics and society developed in diametrically different directions.

How do North and South Koreans perceive each other today, 75 years after the traumatic breakup?

What mutual beliefs, prejudices and expectations color the relationship between the two twin nations?
Song Byeok was a propaganda cartoonist for the regime in North Korea before he managed to escape to the South in 2002. He now lives in Europe and works as a satirist and artist. Bora Chung is a renowned South Korean fiction writer and has made a name for herself as an outspoken critic of Korean politics and what she believes is an authoritarian turn.

The two meet Morten Traavik, who through internationally known art projects, documentaries ("Liberation Day" (2016) and "North South Man Woman" (2025)) and books ("The Traitor's Guide to North Korea, 2018) has a better basis for comparison than most.

The three talk about how art, literature and humor can both challenge and reinforce the Korean Peninsula's current contradictions and violent history.

In collaboration with the Rafto Foundation