Thammasat University students interested in art, the humanities, ASEAN studies, Myanmar, history, political science, sociology, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 15 June Zoom webinar on The Art of Resistance: Myanmar Artists under Siege.

The event, on Thursday, 15 June 2023 at 4pm Bangkok time, is presented by the Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, Japan.

The TU Library collection includes several books about different aspects of art in Myanmar.

Students are invited to register at this link.

The event announcement states:

This talk brings together four Myanmar artists known for their creative resistance to the military

dictatorship that seized control of the state in February 2021. Here they share their work as well as their experiences of surviving after the coup, the difficulties they face as artists under conditions of repression and the role of art in resistance to military rule.

About the Speakers:

Ma Ei (born in 1978 in Myanmar) is a visual artist from Myanmar. She graduated with a degree in Physics from Yangon University. She is a multi-media artist known in particular for confronting and questioning social and cultural norms imposed on women in Myanmar society. […] She was actively involved in the revolution after the military coup in Myanmar in 2021. She now lives in Melbourne, Australia as a refugee and using her art as a weapon to support the revolution.

Nge Lay (born in 1979 in Myanmar) is a graduate of the National University of Arts and Culture, Yangon, Myanmar. She is a multidisciplinary artist whose works includes performance, installation, sculpture, and photography. Her art reflects socio-political issues in Myanmar society, particularly regarding gender, education, history and memory. […]

Zoncy Heavenly (born in 1987 in Myanmar) graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Sciences in 2008. She uses a range of media in her work, including painting, photography, installation and performance. […]

Anon (resident in Myanmar) I was forced to destroy my art for fear of punishment. I will talk about what it is like living in Myanmar today. Our country is under siege, and we all are in prison. We have lost our future. Our lives and those of our children are in darkness. We have lost our homes and we are hungry. Our health, education, economy and society have all been buried in this nationwide dungeon. We wish to be free and see the sky again.

Moderator: Tina Burrett, Associate Professor of Political Science, Sophia University

With a motto of “connecting Sophia to the world,” the Institute of Comparative Culture (ICC) promotes interdisciplinary studies in social sciences and humanities from a comparative perspective, building the global networks of Sophia’s international researchers, and supporting collaboration with world-class researchers outside Japan. The specializations of ICC members include business, economics, history, literature, art history and area studies, focusing on Asia. All research activities and public events are conducted in English. The central activity of the ICC is funding and organizing research projects initiated by ICC members.

In January, the Financial Times reported:

Since elections in Myanmar in 2010 and the 2012 by-election victory of the National League for Democracy party, Burmese art had been on the rise. Private galleries, such as Art Seasons and Yavuz in Singapore and Thavibu gallery in Bangkok, and public museums, notably the National Gallery Singapore, have started exhibiting the work of Burmese artists. A 2013 exhibition organised by the Guggenheim and a 2017 show in Tokyo included many works by Burmese artists and in 2021 the Centre Pompidou in Paris dedicated a large-scale exhibition to the Burmese modernist Bagyi Aung Soe.

But the coup’s leaders brought growing domestic artistic freedom to a halt, blacklisting anti-coup artists or those who had made pro-democracy work or art dealing with sexuality. This violence added to the oppression of local ethnic and religious groups, including the Rohingya people, the Muslim minority now confined to Rakhine state and victims of a genocide by the military rulers.

Artists within the country never stopped working, but they are under strict censorship and the constant threat of incarceration. Art fairs and art weeks are a good chance to see their works since they have limited possibilities to show within Myanmar or are in exile abroad.

Htein Lin, a prominent painter, performer and activist who has been involved in resistance movements for decades, became a cautionary tale. He was thrown in prison last August, along with his wife Vicky Bowman, the former British ambassador, charged with breaching immigration laws. They were finally released in November in an amnesty of political prisoners.

“It seems as if news of Htein Lin’s arrest was what jolted the art community in Singapore and south-east Asia [into greater awareness],” says Ho, who also curated Htein Lin’s solo show Another Spring at Richard Koh Fine Art in Singapore in 2022. At Art SG, Koh’s gallery is showcasing pieces by two Myanmar artists, Aung Ko’s “The Burmese Tiger and English Hunter” and Wah Nu’s cloud paintings.

For most artists who decided to leave the country after the 2021 coup, the challenge is to highlight the condition in Myanmar and still be subtle enough not to endanger their families back home. That’s why most of the works that will be showcased in shows and on fair booths prefer to address specific issues using symbols and ancient tales.

Last month, on the Myanmar Now website, an independent news service, an article was posted:

A Myanmar artist finds freedom behind bars—by portraying prisoners’ oppression

About a month after Myanmar’s military seized power on February 1, 2021, murals started appearing on roads in the country’s largest city, Yangon. The huge images depicted Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the newly formed coup regime, holding a gun to his own head. They soon became rallying points for protesters who no doubt wished he would pull the trigger.

Few who gathered around these artworks knew who created them, however. Only the artist himself, who had joined the protests together with his 14-year-old son, was in on that secret, along with the friend who helped him get the materials he needed to make his own unique contribution to the outpouring of outrage that was sweeping the country.

“A friend of mine gave me money, and I did the rest. I drew murals in three places. It took me four or five hours to create each one,” recalled Ko Phoe—the artist in question—from the safety of a liberated area near Myanmar’s border with Thailand.

Two years later, his work continues to draw attention to the country’s political crisis, which has since turned into a full-blown civil war.

In early January, the thin, white-bearded 51-year-old held an exhibition in a Thai border town that is home to many other fellow Myanmar exiles. On display were some 70 sketches on a far more modest scale than his Yangon murals. These were his pen drawings from his time inside Insein Prison. […]

Almost from the moment that he arrived in Insein, Ko Phoe started sketching. He soon learned that it gave him certain advantages.

The first drawing that he did was for a guard that he described as a nasty person—“a bully who swore at inmates all the time.” Despite this, the guard—who had somehow learned that Ko Phoe was an artist—was kind towards him because he wanted a portrait of his father.

After receiving an ID photo of the guard’s father and some drawing materials, Ko Phoe explained that he might not be able to do a good job, because he couldn’t see well without his glasses. The guard told him to do his best, but also asked him about his prescription.

“Four or five days later, after I drew the picture for him, he gave me a pair of glasses,” said Ko Phoe, adding: “I think he liked my drawing.”

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)