Myanmar’s Contemporary Arts: In the Face of a Revolution Clara Che Wei Peh
In the early morning of 1 February 2021, Myanmar’s military declared a year-long state of emergency. The military junta seized control of the government, after arresting the nation’s civil leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and top members of the elected National League for Democracy (NLD). Parliament was scheduled to hold its first session since the nation’s elections last November, during which the NLD won by a landslide. Claiming electoral fraud and refusing to accept the voting results, the military forcefully took over Myanmar and its infrastructures, restricting telecommunications and internet access, and suspending domestic and international travel. With that, the military took away the quasi-democracy Myanmar had for the past five years and has held the nation hostage since. As a result, Myanmar’s contemporary arts scene is forced to confront an uncertain path ahead, as artists risk facing increased scrutiny and censorship, as well as stark changes to the arts ecosystem. Based in Yangon, Nathalie Johnston, Founder and Director of Myanm/art, a contemporary arts organisation, says, “Waking up on 1 February, hearing the news, it felt like the bottom fell out underneath the entire country. Whatever future we imagined was gone in an instant.” Pro-democracy protestors took to the streets in largely peaceful acts of civil disobedience, work stoppages and general strikes. Johnston observed that art played a major function in spreading the messages of the revolution and expressing solidarity. The Association of Myanmar Contemporary Artists hosted an art-making protest event on one of the main roads in downtown Yangon on 10 February, in support of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). Artists across different practices and mediums joined together to create artworks and sold them to raise funds for civil servants partaking in the CDM, refusing to continue to work in service of the military. From The Periphery
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