FOR THE PEACEFUL AND INDEPENDENT REUNIFICATION OF KOREA, 1969
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South.
This poster advocates for the reunification of the Republic of Korea (known as South Korea), represented by the child on the left, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (known as North Korea) represented by the child on the right. During the 1960s, the governments of Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea formed close ties based on a shared opposition to the U.S.A.
OSPAAAL’s designers regularly used adapted photographs from the organisation’s news desk. Photographs were sometimes used out of context, with the same photographs appearing in posters and magazine illustrations to represent different themes. The identity of the children in this photograph is not known.
