/ Shi : A Signpost on the Blurry Map of Myanmar Art History

Abstract: /Shi was a citywide satellite exhibition I co-curated in Yangon, Myanmar, held from 12 November 2022 to 12 January 2023. The exhibition was chiefly sponsored by the Goethe Institute of Yangon and comprised seven venues and over fifty artists. Art exhibitions are not rare in Myanmar and there have been other large-scale exhibitions prior to /Shi in the recent decade. However, the lack of critique and documentation on these activities in the Myanmar art world have rendered these art projects and cultural endeavours generationally unable to build upon their predecessors and always having to start from square one. This essay is a preventive measure against /Shi ’s foreboding fate of becoming another unreviewed model of exhibition-making in Myanmar. /Shi established once and for all that art and exhibitions that actively engage with the general public can still happen in postcoup Yangon. May /Shi ’s successes be built upon and failings understood .