For decades North Korea, or the Democratic People s Republic

of Korea (DPRK), has been a country shrouded in secrecy from

the outside world. Little is seen of the totalitarian regime of Kim

Jong-il, son of the great leader Kim Il-sung, or the people of one

of the few Communist-ruled countries in the world.

As a clandestine nation with nuclear ambitions, North

Korea was only recently taken off the U.S. list of states that

sponsor terrorism whilst international NGOs count human

rights in North Korea as some of the worst in the world, with

severe restrictions on their political and economic freedoms.

Freedom of the press is non-existent.

Photographer Irina Kalashnikova and Glyn Ford, a British

member of the European Parliament, visited North Korea in

August 2008. Cameras and visitors are both tightly regulated,

yet they managed to bring back unique images of a population

that were often far removed from our Western preconceptions.

Beaches and mud baths, hairdressers and hospitals, farms

and karaoke bars, these are just some of the places where we

see the North Koreans - as we have never seen them before.

These images feature alongside more familiar scenes of North

Korea, and the most famous spectacle of all, the Pyongyang

Arirang mass games, where thousands perform disciplined

acrobatics and record-breaking formations in dazzling displays.

A fascinating and candid view of the people of this little seen

and understood country - at work, at play, their daily lives

played out in a unique collection of photographs, revelling in the

misnomers of what we imagine life there is really like.