MYANMAR

My first visit to Burma (Myanmar) was in 2004 on a special meditation VISA. I was there for one month of silent Buddhist meditation practice in a monastery in Saigang Hills in Central Burma. While my time on the cushion was profound, it was what I discovered after I left the monastery that changed the trajectory of my life, and eventually put me on the path to become a photographer. During repeat visits to Burma, and to Malaysia to interview some of my friends from Burma who had fled to Kuala Lumpur, I stumbled on to stories of human trafficking, child labor, forced and bonded labor and child conscription into the army. I write and speak about some of those stories here.

But most of the images in this portfolio are from moments after the country opened up in 2011, when Aung San Suu Kyi had been released from House Arrest and elected to Parliament. Happier moments when life was changing and improving for those same ordinary citizens, when my friends and I had established a thriving mobile education project for child laborers, and I could enjoy roaming around freely on the streets and in the monasteries in and around Yangon, Mandalay, Bago, Bagan, and Mawlymine. Until the brutal military coup in 2021 sent this beautiful, beleaguered nation careening into crisis yet again, and where it remains today.