Myanmar Photo Archive (MPA) is both a physical archive of photographs taken between 1890 and 1995 in Myanmar and the country's former period of British Burma, as well as an ongoing project for the public awareness of the country's visual culture. Through various exhibitions, an online presentation and a publication programme, MPA has become known for spreading Myanmar’s rich photographic culture, both on a local and an international level. With a collection of more than 30.000 images and other related materials, MPA has become the largest archive for Myanmar's photographic history. MPA has also published several books on the history of photography in Myanmar and former Burma and has been engaged in public events and artistic re-evaluation of the archive's collections.
In 2013, Austrian photographer Lukas Birk began collecting photographic material and conducting research on the history of photography in Myanmar. Since then, he has founded the first public photographic archive focusing on images taken by local photographic professionals and amateurs, including Sino-Burmese professionals,[1] the Myanmar Photo Archive (MPA). It contains images from photo studios, private photo albums, official photography, company records, documentary and scientific images, as well as studio accessories, photographic slides and negatives. As of 2023, MPA has produced several exhibitions[2] with materials from their archive comprising more than 30,000 images. Using photographs from the archive, MPA also started an innovative photo-book publishing programme in the capital city Yangon.[3]
Commenting on the social significance of the archive's collection, Birk said: “The archive […] is all about the history of Myanmar. And actually, history doesn’t mean what happened at the government level or what happened [involving] big things. Everyone has a history and it’s important. That’s the whole point of collecting family stories.”[3]
In a 2019 interview with Photo District News, Birk explained further reasons for establishing the archive:[4]
We all need references to who we are and where we are from. In many countries these references are available and researchers had the opportunity to investigate and store information. In Myanmar this is sadly not the case. There haven’t been references to visual culture recorded, at least not in [a systematical way] that has public access. That is [the] main task – making information public, especially information that can bring people together, rather than divide them.
— Lukas Birk, founder of Myanmar Photo Archive
For financial and logistic support, the MPA has received major funding from the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme,[5] the German cultural center – Goethe-Institute – in Yangon[6] and the Delegation of the European Union in Myanmar.[7]
The first book titled One Year in Yangon 1978 was dedicated to images taken by various historical photo studios in downtown Yangon after the country's independence in 1948,[8] and the second featured the work of U Than Maung, an important amateur photographer who worked both before and after independence.[9] The third volume called REPRODUCED, rethinking P.A. Klier & D.A. Ahuja enquired about the contemporary significance of the widely known images by expatriate photographers Philip Adolphe Klier and D. A. Ahuja during colonial times.[10] Next, My Universe at BayBay presented a visual diary of the photographer Bay Bay. On this, Birk wrote: "Her work is a wonderful escape of dark thoughts and paths into imagery that speaks of colours, air, light and the zest for life. Bay Bay takes us on a journey into her inner struggle and creates a narrative rarely seen in Myanmar, as alcoholism and addiction is very much a taboo subject."[11]
Irene: A Burmese Icon presented photographs from the life of an upper-middle-class woman in Mandalay during the years of Myanmar’s military regime in the 1960s and 1970s. In the introduction, photographer Khin Thu Thu wrote: "When I discovered the vintage black and white images of this stylish woman from an unknown era, I was fascinated with her fashion, her look and her confidence. She always wears her hair in a neat up-do. She wears little make-up. She wears oversized sunhats and scarves. Her clothes were well fitted and chic, and she exudes elegance and poise.”[12]
The sixth book, Yangon Fashion 1979 – Fashion=Resistance, focused on pictures documenting the fashionable clothes of mostly young men and women in Yangon. As explained in the introduction, "Photo studios around Yangon University and downtown attracted an enormous number of young clients posing in stylish outfits, some of which were even custom-tailored for the occasion. The resulting images are something like an old-school Facebook – an exchange of physical imagery, as the photos were usually shared with friends."[13]
All of these publications were designed and published in limited editions in both English and Burmese by Lukas Birk for his Austrian publishing company. Some of them were hand-made in Myanmar as part of an education project with local bookbinders, and all of them were distributed both locally and internationally.[14]
During the 2017 Yangon Photo Festival, MPA presented its first public exhibition titled Yangon Fashion 1979 in Yangon's centrally located Maha Bandula Park. As visitors walked through the space between larger-than-life images of young people dressed in 1960s and 1970s local or Western-style clothes, they learned about a time when "studio photography provided an opportunity to dress up and share images with friends."[15][16][17]
In February 2018, Birk curated a very popular public exhibition for the Yangon Photo Festival at the historic Secretariat Building in Yangon. This exhibition titled “Burmese Photographers” presented 300 images and information on the country's history and the development of photography from the colonial era up to the 1970s. These photographs were complemented by the work of contemporary photojournalists in Myanmar, films and a replica of a colonial-era photo studio. Further, an accompanying book sponsored by the Goethe-Institute was on sale, along with a selection of postcards. Some of the more than 50,000 visitors said that they had not been aware of such a rich photographic heritage and that it allowed them new insights into their country's history.[2]
As part of the Yangon Photo Festival 2019, MPA showed reproductions of 25 vintage photos again in Maha Bandula Park. They had been given to the archive by the daughter of amateur photographer U Than Maung, who had been prompted by the 2018 exhibition, and were later documented in the photo-book U Than Maung, the No 1 Amateur Photographer.[3][18]
After the latest military coup of 1st February 2021, that brought about many negative changes in the country's political and social life, the MPA and Goethe-Institute started a new programme on 30 May 2023. This programme provided forty-five production grants to writers, visual artists, gallery owners, curators and representatives of art organizations to create their own projects inspired by images from the archive.[6] The resulting artworks and literary texts, along with materials from the MPA, have been announced to be presented through online exhibitions, printed materials and physical exhibitions.[19]
The MPA website is freely accessible with parts of the much larger physical archive allowing online access to single photographs. This provides insights into life in the country from the 1940s up to the 1990s, covering the first period after independence in 1948, followed by a short democratic period and the socialist era, interspersed by several military coups. The collection is divided into categories such as Buddhism, the country's modern history, cinema, fashion, portraits of women and of men, and a so-called photo album, which means personal albums of photographers or families. Further, the website presents featured articles about individual local photographers, old movie posters, colourful hand-painted billboards and musical instruments among others, written by Myanmar authors.[20]
Reporting on the "slow, unpredictable and life-affirming qualities of analogue film photography" gradually being discovered by young people in Yangon, news magazine Frontier Myanmar wrote that MPA has documented how Burmese photographers had started to create "their own cultural perspective and lived experience to photography by 1910."[21] The Irrawaddy quoted a visitor's comments on the 2018 Yangon photo exhibition: “As a young photographer, this event has left me inspired and given me the chance to acknowledge the history of the photography of my country. It was a remarkable experience.”[2] In another article about the same exhibition, The Myanmar Times called it "a side of modern Myanmar that, until very recently, remained hidden in dusty attics and decaying photo albums, hidden from the country’s visual history as we know it."[22]
American monthly trade publication for professional photographers Photo District News described MPA in 2019 as "currently the only anthology specializing in local Burmese photography and one of the largest collections of Burmese visual identity. It shows the Burmese people, by the Burmese people. In order to ensure these images continue to speak to the present day context, Birk constantly activates the archive."[4]
Nathalie Johnston, a scholar of performance art and contemporary art history, who worked in Myanmar from 2012 to 2021, wrote in her 2023 essay subtitled "The Forgotten Stories of Ordinary Lives in Myanmar": "The collection shows the adaptability and resilience of a population, from its pursuit of the new and fashionable to its reverence of traditions." Further, she continued her appreciation of MPA:[15]
One of the many things that draw people’s interest to photography are the stories behind the image, the contextual window they open for engagement. Who took these images and where did they find their subjects? What happens behind the lens and what stories do those images tell? Myanmar Photo Archive (MPA) asked these questions and revealed answers not often found in the research on photography in Myanmar. In fact, MPA’s mission changed the way photography was valued, collected, and exhibited in Myanmar, and it will be so for years to come.
— Nathalie Johnston, Beh hma leh? (‘Where are you?’): The Forgotten Stories of Ordinary Lives in Myanmar
