On show in the Atrium Gallery at LSE, ‘Not Another Protest Exhibition: Myanmar in Revolt & Feminist Art Practice’ features the work of Chuu Wai, a multidisciplinary artist from Shan State, Myanmar, now living in Paris. In this post, curator and LSE PhD Research Scholar Sara Wong discusses the historical and socio-political context of contemporary Myanmar through artwork that responds creatively to the historic role that women have played in resisting military rule. (See also ‘“Htamain” at the Front: Breaking Tradition, Resisting the Coup in Myanmar‘, published today.

Wong, Sara

English

LSE Research Online

Weaving Art and Resistance in MyanmarOn show in the Atrium Gallery at LSE, ‘Not Another Protest Exhibition: Myanmar in Revolt& Feminist Art Practice’ features the work of Chuu Wai, a multidisciplinary artist fromShan State, Myanmar, now living in Paris. In this post, curator and LSE PhD ResearchScholar Sara Wong discusses the historical and socio-political context of contemporaryMyanmar through artwork that responds creatively to the historic role that women haveplayed in resisting military rule. (See also ‘“Htamain” at the Front: Breaking Tradition,Resisting the Coup in Myanmar‘, published today.)  In this post, I reflect on Chuu Wai’s creative practice, and its relation to feminist andrevolutionary imperatives. In doing so, I hope to open up broader questions about theco-constitutive relationship between art, politics and resistance in post-colonial contexts.Revolution and the EverydayIn creating artworks for this exhibition, Chuu Wai uses materials relating to everydayobjects and practices: from fabric and textiles to woven baskets and photographs.Ubiquity is an intentional aesthetic motif in the pieces, attended to primarily through thedeployment of a familiar basket-weaving technique from baskets that are used ineveryday, mundane ways in Myanmar. Using this as the canvas, Chuu Wai interweavescollaged elements, paintings and fabric in the Woven series (Image 1). In doing so, theartworks ask: how might we understand the relationship between the everyday and therevolutionary? This open question, of which both the artworks and exhibition obscureobvious answers, is especially important in a political context where, over three years onsince the military coup in February 2021, people across Myanmar are subject toauthoritarian rule and experiences of abject violence on a daily basis. Says Chuu Wai,I simply ask the questions in the paintings, and I hope people will ask theirown questions through the paintings as well.The visual impact of utilising this technique results in a jarring viewing experience, onewhere you do not quite know where to look or what you are looking at. This is intentionalfor the artist, who views her artwork as a kind of ‘puzzle’ or ‘game’ to be pieced togetherPage 1 of 7Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 06/03/2024and worked through by the audience. Image 1: ‘Woven’ series: Two 20x50x3.5cms, three 20x20x3.5cms, acrylic and collageon canvas, woven with Myanmar textiles, 2024 © Chuu Wai. Used with permission; seebelow for more details.Textiles and RepresentationTextiles are another important thread which runs through the pieces in this show. Insome paintings, the artist makes use of fabric as a canvas, in others it is interwoven withother collaged and painted elements (Image 2). The use of fabric appropriates a culturalstigma which sees women’s skirts (htamain) as unlucky, dirty and a thing to be avoidedby men. This very stigma acted as inspiration for protestors in Myanmar immediatelyafter the 2021 coup, who used the widespread idea that htamain should not be walkedunder, and hung them across the city in order to barricade military and police personnel.Although the artist’s use of fabric preceded this strategic use in the protest movement,the artworks also commemorate this approach and, in doing so, record this creativeprotest practice in the wider historical archive. Representing the conflict in this way wasimportant to the artist:I wanted to do a bit of reflection on war and conflict without saying it directly,because a lot of artists who were displaced from Myanmar, when they arrivedin Europe, many galleries and people expected more violent work, for us todescribe killings and conflicts. I wanted to approach it in a different way.This illustrates the ways in which representations of political violence, resistance andconflict are shaped not only by individual artists’ renderings but also by a broadercultural (and political) infrastructure subject to processes of tokenisation andPage 2 of 7Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 06/03/2024exploitation, one which reflects and reproduces wider global inequalities.Image 2: ‘Chew you up or Spit you out’, 120x90cms, acrylic and collage on Myanmartextile, 2024 © Chuu Wai. Used with permission; see below for more details.The use of fabric and textiles — each with their unique patterns, dyes and materials — inthe artworks also speaks to the ethnic diversity found across Myanmar, where hundredsof languages are spoken amongst its many ethnic communities. Since its demarcation asa nation-state in 1948 following independence from British colonial rule, Myanmar hasalways been a multi-ethnic country, despite the Bamar (the dominant ethnic community)historically holding most positions of power in the military and government. It is importantto note that while the 2021 military coup (and resistance to it) was an important historicaljuncture, non-Bamar ethnic communities (like the Rohingya) continued to experienceviolence and genocidal actions of the Myanmar military even through the decade ofPage 3 of 7Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 06/03/2024‘democratic transition’ (2011–21) that preceded it.Collage and PhotographsThroughout the pieces featured in this exhibition, the artist uses archival photographsthat both reflect and destabilise the notion of an enshrined historical past where womenin Myanmar (then Burma) dressed and presented themselves ‘modestly’. Taken fromarchival sources, newspapers and collections, these photographs are overlaid withpainted figures of women embodying postures and wearing clothing which subvert this‘modesty’ (Image 3). In this way, the artworks aim to disrupt and re-write cultural codeswhich the artist sees as confining women to imagined histories of modesty anddiffidence. A number of photographs used are taken from the last dynastic period inBurma (Konbaung Dynasty, 1782–1885) before British colonisation led to the abolition ofthe monarchy. Chuu Wai reflected on her choice of using archival photographs from thisera, saying,When people criticise women, how they should or how they shouldn’t dress,they take this era and this time as the representation of tradition. And thenwhen we look at the real portraits of these, it was a little bit different. Theylook modern and they look free.The juxtaposing of mixed media and collage like this leverages the artworks’ broaderhistorical questions about the relationship between perceptions of the past, the politics ofthe present and possibilities for the future.Page 4 of 7Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 06/03/2024Image 3: ‘Shadows in the Ayeyarwaddy’, 120x90cms, acrylic and collage on canvas,2024 © Chuu Wai. Used with permission; see below for more details.Protest and DisplacementThe pieces featured in ‘Not Another Protest Exhibition’ also interweave words takendirectly from posters from protests during the height of the Civil Disobedience Movement.Written demands from protesters interwoven into these pieces range from basic thingslike, ‘I want to live and sleep peacefully’, to hopes around livelihoods, ‘I don’t want to goback to riding a trishaw for a living after high school’, to, finally, a reflection onPage 5 of 7Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 06/03/2024displacement from the artist herself which reads, ‘I’m just the one who doesn’t knowwhere home is’.According to the UNHCR, nearly 2 million people are internally displaced in Myanmar,and 1.3 million are refugees or seeking asylum outside. While exile and displacementare not the primary focus of Image 4, this subtle reference helps humanise the ripplingimpacts of military rule, as a way to relate to these unfathomable statistics differently.Many artists from Myanmar, including Chuu Wai, participated in the 2021 protests andas a result had to flee the country; they now continue their (creative) resistance fromelsewhere. In trying to articulate the emotional experience of displacement, Chuu Waisays,I feel more and more dissolved in this place, you know?Picking up where the limits of words leave off, her artwork has allowed her to reflect onthe embodied and intangible experiences of displacement.Page 6 of 7Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 06/03/2024Image 4: ‘Want To Sleep Peacefully’, 20x20cms, acrylic and collage on canvas, wovenwith Myanmar textile on textile canvas, 2024 © Chuu Wai. Used with permission; seebelow for further details.*By linking feminist imperatives with revolutionary ones, the artworks in this exhibitiondraw connections between patriarchal oppression and military rule, and in doing so,allow audiences the opportunity to engage with such linkages not just intellectually, butalso affectively. From paintings and poetry to music and performance, (feminist)resistance in Myanmar and the diaspora to colonial, military and authoritarian rule hasoften been brought to life in varied and creative ways. This exhibition is but oneexpression of the ways in which art and revolutionary politics do (and could) overlap.*Not Another Protest Exhibition: Myanmar in Revolt & Feminist Art Practice (29 January–23 February 2024), Atrium Gallery, OLD Building, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A2AE, is open to the public on weekdays, 9am–5pm. Copyright information: All artworks © Chuu Wai; all photographs © Sara Wong. Usedwith permission; no artwork image/photograph may be used by anyone without priorwritten permission of the artist and photographer.The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economicsand Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy. This blogpost may not be reposted by anyone without prior written consent of LSE SouthAsia Centre; please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for permission.Banner image © Sara Wong, ‘Not Another Protest Exhibition: Myanmar in Revolt &Feminist Art Practice’, 2024. Used with permission.*Page 7 of 7Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 06/03/2024

Weaving art and resistance in Myanmar

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Weaving art and resistance in Myanmar

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