Abstract
HTEIN LIN, MYANMAR artist and former political prisoner (1998-2004), has created this painting for our 50th anniversary in the style of his ‘How do you find.….?’ series. Through the series he has previously observed London, Amsterdam and other cities through his Myanmar eyes, identifying, connecting and adapting cultural references.
In this piece, the 50 is printed on Shan mulberry leaf paper using the monotype technique he developed during his six-and-ahalf years in prison, painting with his fingers on scraps of plastic and printing onto white prison uniform. Tucked into the cells in the numbers are iconic images of censorship and the censored: Xi Jinping and Pooh Bear, Myanmar writer and prisoner Win Tin, George Orwell, Anna Politkovskaya, Václav Havel, and Ma Thida, friend, Myanmar writer, former prisoner, and current Chair of PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee. Dr Li Wenliang, silenced for exposing the early days of Covid, Liu Xiaobo, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Alexei Navalny rub shoulders with Donald Trump and a Charlie Hebdo cartoon.
Around the figures, festooned with barbed wire, flutter the icons of social media and internet shutdown, and more traditional images of censorship such as redaction, book burning, arrest and murder.
Lin continues to live and work in Myanmar and remains committed to freedom of expression. He is a founding member of the Association for Myanmar Contemporary Art (AMCA) whose planned launch date of 1 February 2021 had to be postponed because of an unexpected military coup.