At this year’s Venice Bienniale in Italy, the Korean pavilion has a curious exhibit called “Commissions for Utopia”. It includes renderings from North Korea’s top architects and artists (all anonymous), many of whom studied at the Paekho Institute of Architecture, North Korea’s state-run architectural college, and none of whom have ever left the country. They were asked to create a vision of North Korea’s future sustainable architecture for its expanding tourism industry. Their final products are a glimpse into what it would be like to envision the future after being entirely cut off from the present for almost 70 years. (Photo by Nick Bonner/Kyle Vanhemert/Venice Architecture Biennale)

Two elderly men smoking pipes of opium on a terrace in Korea. (Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Getty Images). August 1950

A woman sits in a train at a subway station in Pyongyang, North Korea on September 11, 2018. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

A guard secures gates of a catfish farm visited by a group of foreign reporters in Pyongyang, North Korea April 17, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Photographer Han Youngsoo captured the ordinary people of Korea as the country emerged from war into an age of prosperity. Han Youngsoo: Photographs of Seoul 1956–63 is at the International Center of Photography (ICP), Jersey City, New Jersey, until June 9, 2017. Here: Seoul, Korea. (Photo by Han Youngsoo/The Guardian)

Korean War veteran Jon Sun Rye, 83 years old, walks after she paid respect to former leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il at Mansu Hill in Pyongyang, North Korea, 15 April 2016. North Korea is marking the “Day of the Sun”, celebrating the day of birth of the country's founder, Kim Il-sung. The Day of the Sun is a national holiday. (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA)

North Korean traffic police women chat next to a residential building while off duty Tuesday, October 18, 2016, in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Photo by Wong Maye-E/AP Photo)

A traffic police officer directs vehicles at a street junction during sunset in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, August 25, 2016. (Photo by Dita Alangkara/AP Photo)