Ishai Shapira Kalter, Notre-Dame, April 15, 2019

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North Korean state media is notoriously insulated and tightly controlled, rarely reporting on foreign disasters—especially those unrelated to its direct interests—unless there’s a clear political message to extract. The fact that North Korean media mentioned the Notre-Dame fire which caused significant damage to the iconic structure on April 15, of all days, is allegedly unusual.

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Every April 15 North Korea is celebrating its most important national holiday: “The Day of the Sun”. It is the birthday of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder and grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un. The occasion is marked with mass celebrations, parades, often military displays and fireworks.

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I was there. The smell of smoke drifted into my studio at the Cité, and, following my nose, I stepped outside. The video above captures those prolonged moments of collapse—moments that might be seen as the opening shot in a series of bizarre events that continue to unfold in contemporary Western culture to this day.

 

In certain circumstances—like the one we find ourselves in today, where truth often appears as little more than a manipulation designed to divert public attention from deeper “subtruths”—art must assume the role of proposing theories that empirical science cannot. Even at the risk of being dismissed as a foolish mistake by future audiences, if such an audience ever arrives to receive the message.​

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The overlap of these two vastly different events—one a cultural tragedy in the West, the other a moment of national pride in one of the world’s most isolated regimes—creates the striking contrast in the symbolism of duality.