“No pictures, please”: José Luís Peixoto’s Journey to North Korea The Photograph as a Certificate of Presence

Abstract

In 2012, the Portuguese writer José Luís Peixoto travelled to North Korea and the result of this trip was the travel account Dentro do Segredo [Inside the Secret]. In his travelogue, Peixoto highlights the use of photography for the verification and legitimization of a journey. Few photographs produced in North Korea have room for improvisation and the author is aware of this fact. He knows that ahead of his photographic lens there is always another lens – that of an austere political regime. The article explores the relationship between words and images in Peixoto’s travel account. It aims to demonstrate how photographs are unreliable forms of representation of the world and – whether they are taken or seen – how they complicate any attempt of a faithful narration of the Other. This study will build on the author’s point that any image captured in that space requires double decoding.