Anastasia Polonsky from Israel was selected as the first prize winner of the DMZ Half & Half Photo Contest, which was held to promote the DMZ in Gyeonggi Province as a global tourist attraction.
On June 18, Gyeonggi Province announced that it had convened its judging committee on June 16 and selected Polonsky as the recipient of the first-place “Best of the Best” award for her photograph entitled From the Past Will Grow the Future featured on her Instagram page.

The second-place award was presented to Choi Yu-ri from Korea for a photograph entitled Heart.
Participants made composite photos using DMZ photos presented by Gyeonggi Province and other photos which they then shared on their SNS (Instagram, Facebook) accounts. A total of 4,474 works were submitted to this competition from 45 countries around the world during a six-week period from April 27 to June 7.
Gyeonggi Province promoted the contest during this period through various media formats; as a result of these efforts, citizens from 137 countries visited the promotion website.
The winner, Polonsky, will receive USD 5,000 in prize money and is invited to join the DMZ Forbidden Tour to visit major tourist destinations in the Civilian Control Zone of the DMZ.
During the DMZ Forbidden Tour, which will run for five days and four nights, the international student press corps of the Korea Tourism Organization will accompany Polonsky to report on her journey in real time via SNS.
Gyeonggi Province plans to use this tour program as an opportunity to internationally promote DMZ-related tourist attractions including Camp Greaves, the location of the popular KBS drama Descendants of the Sun, as well as the 3rd Tunnel, Dorasan Observatory and Deokjinsanseong Fortress.