DMZ by Park Jongwoo (Steidl)
Park Jongwoo began his career as a photojournalist before shifting his focus to documentary photography. He dedicates his work to capturing the vanishing cultures and lives of minority communities around the world through both photography and film.
He made history as the first civilian photographer granted access to the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) after the 1953 armistice, documenting its landscape for the 60th anniversary of the Korean War’s end. His ongoing work explores the impact of national division, with projects such as NLL, Imjin River, Guard Posts, and DMZ Excavation of War Remains.
More recently, Park has focused on photographing abandoned war facilities across various countries—structures once built to serve state ideologies but now left to decay, offering a stark reflection on history and memory.
Jongwoo Park’s photobook DMZ presents a compelling photographic exploration of Korea’s Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), the heavily fortified strip of land separating North and South Korea. Stretching 248 km in length and 4 km in width, this buffer zone—despite its name—is one of the most militarised borders in the world, operating under strict armistice conditions since the Korean War’s end in 1953.
In 2009, the South Korean Ministry of National Defence granted Park rare access to document the DMZ, a territory largely off-limits to civilians and previously lacking a comprehensive photographic record. Over the next three years, Park meticulously captured the area, navigating complex bureaucratic hurdles to complete his project.
His work reveals a striking duality: while signs of military presence—barbed wire, outposts, and armed troops—underscore the ongoing tensions that have led to sporadic violence, the DMZ’s isolation has also allowed nature to reclaim the land. Today, this once-contested region stands as one of the world’s most well-preserved temperate ecosystems, providing a sanctuary for endangered flora and fauna. The result is a series that juxtaposes conflict and tranquility, history and preservation, human division and ecological resilience.
You can see more work on his website here, or visit the Steidl website.
