-
Maung Day
Figures Beyond the Brick Wall, 2022Mixed media on paper37.5 x 27.5 cmCopyright The ArtistIn April 2022 – almost a year after a series of wars broke out between the Arakan Army and the Bamar Military in the area, Burmese artist Maung Day took...In April 2022 – almost a year after a series of wars broke out between the Arakan Army and the Bamar Military in the area, Burmese artist Maung Day took a trip to Arakan Land. On this trip through Sittwe, Mrauk-U and other small Arakanese towns, he brought along a drawing book, into which he sketched out the sights of his journey. Upon returning home, he redrew many of these sketches.
Of this drawing, Maung Day writes:
"This is another night painting of a rural landscape. I spent three nights in a village a bit far from Sittwe, and behind the house I was staying at, there was an unfinished brick wall without any indication as to which property it was fencing. The wall was just there in the field, and left unfinished. However, the figures of people moving beyond the wall and the field intrigued me. Probably there was another village over there. The Arakan Land is a place of walls and barriers literally and metaphorically. Walls and barriers stand between the military communities, the local Arakan communities, and the Muslim communities. Walls and barriers exist physically as well as in the minds of the people."
