What comes to your mind when you hear “North Korea”? – A film team from the Swiss Alpine Museum toured the mountainous Korean peninsula during the brief thaw in relations between the two Koreas (2018/19). The team climbed summits with trekking groups, visited school classes, watched artists at work, travelled to farms in the hilly provinces and stopped off at North Korea’s largest ski resort.

The micro-stories captured on film tell of an everyday existence that you won’t see on the TV news. Forty interviews give a voice to people who are at risk of disappearing behind the political system and our own images of them.

Leading you through this exhibition will be Thomas Fisler, a former Humanitarian and Developmental Expert, who for four years was Resident Representative and Director of Cooperation for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SDC, in Pyongyang, DPR Korea.

Following his retirement in 2017, Thomas Fisler continued with some assignments for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SDC. In 2019, Mr. Thomas Fisler was the Head of Mission and Director of
Cooperation of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Kabul, Afghanistan. Through 2018, he was the Humanitarian Coordinator on Switzerland’s response to the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. Prior to these assignments he was Switzerland’s Resident Representative to the DPR Korea and Director of Cooperation for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SDC, based in Pyongyang for 4 years.

We have a very limited number of tickets. In order to avoid no-shows, a CHF 50 no-show fee will be charged if you do not cancel your registration until 24 hours before the event the latest.

About Art over Lunch 

Art over Lunch is a monthly event series for members of Asia Society Switzerland. Each time, we visit an exhibition or a special part of a collection with artists, curators and experts for 45 minutes. The tours are designed to give members a different view on the vast troves at the museums and galleries in the city of Zurich and provide an opportunity to mingle and discuss. 

Art over Lunch is made possible with the support of the private bank Bergos.