The arts and research festival in Yangon is launching now. @EMReF_Myanmar Director Myat Thet Thitsar opens by talking of our shared humanity; @jaskaurphd talks about the importance of nurturing relationships and working with each other’s rhythms... 
And Sayama Ma Thida of PEN Myanmar gives a powerful keynote speech about art as the search for truth, and for us to consider research as art too. @ahrcpress
Panel discussion: pursuing arts in research.
Arts and research are natural collaborators and the festival is paving the way to amplify the potential of this relationship
Arts and research are natural collaborators and the festival is paving the way to amplify the potential of this relationship
Htein Lin says there needs to be more investment in research in order to be part of a more global network; and the outputs, says Sayama Ma Thida, need to be free from censorship (and from their historical appropriation as political propaganda).
As a researcher, @dansenglawn says art and research are similar and different. Art targets the people’s hearts; research targets people’s reason.
Myat Thet reflects on the fact that much social research is commissioned and defined by int’l agencies, and that has made it difficult to consider how art can be incorporated into this. But their research on border areas and experiences has opened up the possibility of art’s role
Follow Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation - EMReF - on Facebook for a live stream of the arts and research festival currently underway in Yangon
The next panel is on Representation, with panellists drawn from our P4P grantees, who participated in a workshop earlier this year to connect with artists & explore the creative potential of their research, resulting in creative collaborations (exhibited during the festival).
The panellists present and discuss their research on issues around political representation and engagement in Chin, Mon, Mandalay, Dawei and more nationally. For more about the research projects in Myanmar, visit parliaments4people.com/p4pgrantprojec…
Reflecting on their creative research-based collaborations with artists - eg animations, cartoons, voxpops - the P4P scholars talk about how this has helped increase accessibility of their research findings to a wider public...
... dispel the myth that research is something done by experts, for experts; and create awareness and dialogue.
On the challenges of attempting research-based art collaborations, the panellists articulate a process of establishing trust, entering into dialogue, brainstorming ideas. and allowing their artist partners to digest and reflect on the data before visualising it.
The panellists also share how they’re creating impact with their research to reduce inequalities in public engagement: incl. billboards near Mon state parliament to generate awareness about the need for gender parity in representation, civic education, generating dialogue
... and making policies and Parliamentarians accountable!
The last panel is on Freedom of Expression, with panellists drawn from research, arts, and activism. We have simultaneous translation for non-Burmese speaking participants and in sign language.
@ShweWuttHmon talks about the work of the Thuma Collective - a group of 5 women photographers - and their festival exhibit on the continuing taboo subject of menstruation, and their activism challenging to the prevailing art landscape and narratives
Danseng Lawn takes up the theme of (self-) censorship in relation to research on IDPs; while poet Maung Saunghka shares his experience of the criminalisation of artist activism, and Thura Tha Wah of PEN Myanmar reflects on the role that self-censorship plays in remaining silent
The panellists argue that art ought to be monitored for discrimination and exclusion, but not censored as this limits the potential for art to influence change. However, culture imposes restrictions as much as politics on freedom of expression
As does our othering of those who aren’t us, says @ShweWuttHmon, sharing the Myanmar-Bangladesh women photographers’@project ‘Bridging the Naf’, as well as the walls built by boundaries between countries
A fantastic first day of the arts and research festival and exhibition has ended. We’ll be tweeting live from Yangon again tomorrow.
@threadreaderapp pls unroll
