Visual Artist Sim Chi Yin is this year's Nobel Peace Prize Photographer

December 20, 2017

Nobel Peace Center, Oslo

Sim Chi Yin has travelled to North Korea and the US to photograph nuclear sites as part of the Nobel Peace Prize Exhibition 2017, at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize exhibition is named “Ban the Bomb” inspired by ICAN’s slogan.

Equipped with cameras and a drone, Sim Chi Yin has spent the past two months traveling along the border of North Korea and across six American states to depict a world we otherwise would not see.

Sim Chi Yin’s photographic series –Fallout– offers an insightful investigation into the realities of nuclear sites and nuclear weapons, and how they have affected individual lives and societies.

“Creating this exhibition has been fascinating for me given that I had read Cold War history at university and my previous career as a Beijing-based journalist writing about the region including North Korea.

I set out to create a series of images pairing the landscapes of North Korea with those of the United States – which are the only country to test nuclear weapons in the 21st Century and the only country to use them.

I found some interesting, uncanny parallels, which led me to reflect on the human experience with nuclear weapons, past and present.

Given the current global worries over the recent North Korean missile tests, and the war of words between Pyongyang and Washington, it feels particularly timely to reflect on this issue,” says Ms. Sim.

“The Nobel Peace Center is honored to have had the opportunity to work together with Sim Chi Yin.

On assignment for the Nobel Peace Center, Sim Chi Yin went to parts of the world that most have not seen, offering us a lens through which to consider what we know of nuclear weapons and their imprint.

She has offered us a way to look back at how humans created nuclear technology and how we are still grappling with its consequences today” says Ms. Liv Tørres, Director at the Nobel Peace Center.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize exhibition is named “Ban the Bomb,” inspired by ICAN’s slogan.

“We hope that this evocative photographic series “Fallout” opens our audience’s eyes to the power and presence of nuclear weapons in today’s world,” says Liv Tørres.

Sim, who works in multidisciplinary story-telling, is from Singapore and has been based in China for a decade.

In recent years, her work has been shown in museums, galleries and photo festivals in Asia, the US and Europe, including a show at the Istanbul Biennale in 2017.

She also does commissioned work for leading global publications like The New York Times Magazine, Time, The Financial Times Magazine and The New Yorker.

Sim was a Magnum Foundation Human Rights and Photography fellow at New York University in 2010 and a finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography in 2013. Sim's website: http://chiyinsim.com.