Maung Day | YANGON – SITTWE – MRAUK-U

15 - 25 December 2022

"I saw lighthouses, the purple Pa-dauk and a rich diversity of plants and flowers, new construction sites, war refugee camps, flooded plains and beautiful rivers, bomb pits on farmland (which reminded me of bomb ponds in Vietnam), military barracks, hills and magnificent lakes, amazing architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries, and gun-carrying men."
I went on a trip to the Arakan Land in April 2022, almost a year after a series of wars broke out between the Arakan Army and the Bamar Military in the area. During my trip which took me from Sittwe to Mrauk-U and all the small Arakanese towns on the way, I saw lighthouses, the purple Pa-dauk and a rich diversity of plants and flowers, new construction sites, war refugee camps, flooded plains and beautiful rivers, bomb pits on farmland (which reminded me of bomb ponds in Vietnam), military barracks, hills and magnificent lakes, amazing architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries, and gun-carrying men. I heard the music and laughter coming from the Thingyan-revelers, the songs of birds and the sound of leaves, local Arakanese speaking their language beautifully, local folk discussing the war and racial conflicts, the sound of friction coming out of the conversation between progressive youth and older generation. There I smelled the aroma of the famous B.O.B marijuana, the fragrance of flowers, the smell of earth, and the smell of tension and fear. I sketched down in my book things that hovered over my senses. I used more colors than before. On this trip, I brought with me a 7 x 10 inch drawing book in which I drew the images. Then when I got back home, I redid 20 of them on 27.5 x 37.5 cm cold-pressed fine arts paper.
Maung Day
A Tuk-Tuk Ride in Sittwe, 2022
Mixed media on paper
27.5 cm x 37.5 cm

We rented a tuk-tuk to take us from Sittwe to a river, on the other side of which lies a village called Phyu Chaung. My wife’s Arakanese relatives live there. The tuk-tuk drove past a score of military barracks and bases which cover thousands of acres of land, showing the mighty presence of the Bamar Army in the area. The road is lined with not just trees, but with many camouflage-painted gates and fences. The greens and the browns of the war camouflage paint mingles with the greens and the browns of the trees in a blurry haze of my vision. I could see and sense how bitterly the local Arakanese detest the presence of those infrastructures. My wife’s uncle mumbled on about the imminent restart of the wars, reflecting the anxieties of the local Arakanese. The wars have halted temporarily, with the Bamar Army shifting their entire focus on crushing the revolutionary forces of the Spring Revolution. The ceasefire signals the rise of the Arakanese Army and instills hopes in the local Arakanese for a better future with more freedom and self-determination.
Maung Day
A Barge in the Gispanadi River
Mixed media on paper
27.5 cm x 37.5 cm
The Arakanese Land is full of flooded plains, and numerous streams and rivers snake about throughout the land. This was my first visit to the area in my entire life, and my former efforts to go there were stopped either by myself or my Arakanese friends worrying about my security, given my Indian ethnic background. The landscapes did fascinate me, and inspired me to make sketches. I saw the well-known Gispanadi River, and a barge slowly moving in it. Beyond the river are expanses of farmland and watersheds. I wanted to capture the texture of the land and the atmosphere, and make it colorful reflecting on the current celebratory mood of the local people.
Maung Day
A Scavenger in Muslim Quarter of Sittwe
Mixed media on paper
37.5 x 27.5 cm

Led by a local Arakanese girl, my wife and I went to explore the Muslim quarter in Sittwe. Another reason for the visit is to buy some marijuana. We took winding alleyways into the neighborhood, and finally found an Indian woman who took us to her house. She went into the back of the house and came out with a large plastic bag full of marijuana. There were both Muslims and Hindus living in the neighborhood. I took a few steps out of the lean, two-storied brickhouse to explore the area a bit. The neighborhood seemed to be located in the back of the city with only garbage piles and drains existing beyond. The opposite of the drug dealer’s place is a storage type building and on the corner next to it lies a garbage pile. Houses are painted in bright colors like red and blue, all flaking off the walls. A scavenger kept himself busy at the garbage. The neighborhood, it seemed to me, is a vibrant place, busy with people doing drug trades and other livelihoods. The sense of being a ‘different’ or ‘alienated’ place hit me hard. The drug dealer woman said she was looking after the drug business for the time being because her husband was then in prison for drug trafficking. The marijuana we bought is locally known as B.O.B – an acronym for Bay of Bengal, as the drug comes from Bangladesh. We walked back to our ride, making our way through vendors selling sundries and small groups of people playing cards and other types of gambling games. I took both a mental image and a photograph of the scavenger and upon arriving at the hotel, I sketched it in my book.
Maung Day
Assassination on the Kitchen Floor
Mixed media on paper
37.5 x 27.5 cm

Assassinations take place throughout Myanmar on a daily basis these days. When I was in Sittwe, I heard the news of a pro-junta village administrator murdered on his kitchen floor, with many people assuming it was the handiwork of some revolutionary or revolutionaries. I also saw the picture of the murder scene being circulated online. The grotesque photograph showed a man in his 50s dead on the floor biting his own tongue, making it look like he was trying to swallow something round. In fact, the tongue rolled up in his mouth, and the rolled-up tip of the tongue stuck out. The news said he was not just an ordinary village administrator and he was working as an informant for the Bamar Army, giving out the names of the locals who spoke against the dictator Min Aung Hlaing. Some people were arrested because of that, and he meanwhile became the target of the revolutionaries who are trying to wipe out pro-junta spies. Having spies or informants in the neighborhoods has made the locals feel anxious and unsafe, creating an atmosphere toxic and full of mistrust.
Maung Day
The Guest at Night
Mixed media on paper
37.5 x 27.5 cm

The nights in the Arakan Land – and in other places throughout the country – are the stuff of horror and destruction. Thieves, thugs, military men, and revolutionaries on secret nocturnal missions come out and prowl in the shadows. The streets are empty and the communities fall asleep shrouded in the darkness of fear. The next morning, there will be news shared at the markets, in the teashops and on the streets – the news of murders, thefts, arson and so on. I wanted to capture that reality in a drawing by creating a metaphorical devil-like creature roaming the marshes and the quiet, dark neighborhoods. The landscape in this drawing came from a photograph I took in a village.
Maung Day
Figures Beyond the Brick Wall, 2022
Mixed media on paper
37.5 x 27.5 cm

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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.
Maung Day
The Inside of a Local Arakanese Restaurant
Mixed media on paper
27.5 cm x 37.5 cm

After Sittwe, we rented a car and drove to Mrauk-U, the famous ancient city, passing numerous temples and pagodas, bomb pits, military posts, and small towns on the way. In Mrauk-U, my wife and I went to a local restaurant. They had steel pots with different dishes in, put on a table. I approached and asked the woman standing between the pots and the kitchen about the dishes. She looked at me briefly and went on doing the stuff she was doing. Then a girl holding plates of rice walked past me. I stopped her and asked about the menu, she also did not seem willing to talk to me. This baffled me a bit, and made me think why I was ignored. Was it because I could not communicate in the local language, or was it because they were afraid of strangers, or was it my Indian looks? I finally managed to get some food, and while we were eating, I noticed that a lot of people came to the restaurant, a lot of them not speaking the local language. The people of this restaurant are in fact used to having strangers and non-locals. When we paid, my wife was furious because they overcharged us, something that was confirmed later when we went there again with a few local friends. This was one of several incidents in which I felt discriminated and very uncomfortable.
Maung Day
Ogre on Pedestal in War Colors, 2022
Mixed media on paper
37.5 x 27.5 cm

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The statues of ogres stand at the gates of many temples and stupas in Myanmar, not much different in the Arakan Land. Ogres are believed to be of an inferior race to humans, and because of their strength and frightening looks – maybe there are other reasons as well – the statues are put at the temple gates to protect the holy grounds. In other words, ogres symbolize guardianship of Buddhism. The military generals of today and of the past have always claimed to be protectors of race, nation, and religion. They chant these three words like a mantra in their speeches. However, they are also the ones murdering and incarcerating Buddhist monks and innocent Buddhist civilians. A lot of temples in Mrauk-U were subject to destruction during the wars between the Bamar Military and the Arakan Army. Bombs dropped from the sky by the Bamar military have crushed many temples to the ground. In reality, these military people aka self-acclaimed guardians of race, religion, and nation have taken a path opposite of what Buddhism teaches. I wanted to mix the sensibility of war and violence with the imagery of religion, resulting in this drawing.
Maung Day
Temple Guarded by a Fence in War Colors
Mixed media on paper
37.5 x 27.5 cm

This piece has a similar thematic approach to the image of the ogre. During the drives around in the Arakan Land, I couldn’t help noticing temples built on the hills and military posts and structures existing in the vicinity of those temples. At one particular place just outside of Mrauk-U, I saw a military gate on a hill and a little beyond that, a powder-white temple. I am sure this combination, this landscape, would have appalled and outraged so many local Arakanese. Again, the narrative of the Bamar Army as the protector of race, religion and nation comes into play. It also points out that the presence of the Bamar military has not only encroached the physical space of the local population but it has also intruded on their spiritual space, something the Bamar military has repeatedly done in the areas of other religious and ethnic populations. At least a lot of the Buddhist Bamar have now realized the military, who always claims to be truly Buddhist, will not flinch once and do to them and to their religion what it has done to other minority groups.
Maung Day
War-Colored River
Signed and dated, bottom right of recto
Mixed media on paper
27.5 cm x 37.5 cm

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I made two sketches of a barge in the Gispanadi River. They both are my attempts to capture the political and geographical textures of the land and water. While the other one touches more on the positives, this one peels off the surface of the land to reveal the anxieties around war. When I was there, I observed that there was always a sense of foreboding in the conversations of local Arakanese. They were looking forward to a better future under the AA, but they also feared the worst because they knew a war could break out anytime.
Maung Day
To the Other Side of the Bay
Mixed media on paper
37.5 x 27.5 cm

Over the past several years a lot of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh and other parts of the coastal line within Myanmar’s border. Some of them got to the shore especially in Bangladesh, while others were lost at sea, their boats sunk by the storms. Until today the news of drowned bodies shoring up on local beaches pops up from time to time, mostly due to the increased rate of Rohingya trafficking. I learnt that local traffickers promise to take the Rohingya who agree to pay a large amount of money to them to other parts of the coast, so they can start their lives somewhere safer and freer but still remains in Myanmar. But these journeys usually end up with the Rohingya being left at a random place along the coast. Then they get arrested by either the Bamar military or the police or the local community, and put into prison. Oftentimes, the traffickers leave the Rohingya at sea. The boats get lost and are sunk by the storms.
Maung Day
Until You Made Us Your Problem, 2022
Mixed media on paper
37.5 x 27.5 cm

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I talked to a Muslim couple and they said, among other things, that there used to be a lot of harmony and some respect between the Rohingya communities and the Arakanese in the past. I also learnt that there are Arakanese communities on the other side of the Bay of Bengal, in Bangladesh, having lived there for generations. The Muslim couple said they wanted to be left alone, they wanted to just live their lives. They said they were not a problem before but now they were made a racial problem, and a political problem, and they never felt safe.
MAUNG DAY (b.1979, Myannmar) is an acclaimed poet and visual artist hailing from Myanmar. He has penned a number of poetry books in Burmese, and some of his English poems have appeared in journals such as Guernica, AAWW’s The Margins, The Awl, Shampoo, Mekong Review, and more. His art practice encompasses drawing, painting, installation, video, and photography. He has shown his artworks in Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Germany, Australia, and Myanmar. His last exhibition entitled You invented this lie for whom? was held in Yangon, taking place in February 2022.

MAUNG DAY CV

Maung Day | YANGON – SITTWE – MRAUK-U

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