Presented earlier this month at Beijing Design Week, The Beautiful Future, is a series of paintings made in Pyongyang, North Korea by a handful of propaganda artists. Commissioned by a pair of Beijing ex-pats who run a North Korean tour guide company, the paintings show contemporary China as it could have been, if it had continued with Maoist ideology. "North Korean artists are the best people at delivering a message without slogans."
Read an article by The Guardian on the series here.
“The Beautiful Future” is a unique collaboration between Nick Bonner of Koryo Tours, Dominic Johnson-Hill of Plastered 8, and selected North Korean artists.
Each piece was hand-painted in Pyongyang, and based on Nick and Dominic’s sketches inspired by their 20 years in China. They wanted to portray a place lost in time, uniting a challenging past,a dynamic present and an imagined future where all is bright and beautiful. As outsiders looking in Nick, Dominic, and the North Korean artists have created a city whose socialist traditions are juxtaposed with present pleasures and modern city idols.
