Episode #85: The Fabric of Change: Feminism, Art, and Revolution
Chuu Wai Nyein could not have known that a breakfast with her sister at a Mandalay teashop would change the course of her life. Chuu was just eighteen at the time, and while the moment itself lasted only seconds, it left behind a lifetime of trauma to process.
As they were leaving the shop, a man sexually assaulted Chuu’s sister, and then ran away. Chuu gave chase, ultimately catching the man and beating him to the ground. “This moment woke me up to focus on the daily life of normal women on the street,” Chuu recalls. What she had initially assumed to be a freak, unlucky encounter, she later learned through talking with friends and family was unfortunately not an uncommon occurrence. Even more concerning was the routine advice given to young Burmese women about this eventuality: to travel with men wherever possible, and if harassment or even assaults do happen, one should just ignore it, stay quiet, and hope the shame passes away quickly.
This experience set Chuu on a course to find a way to respond to the relative powerlessness of women in Burmese culture. She eventually found her voice through painting.
“We're strong, and we can take care of ourselves,” she says. “Sometimes we are brave, and I'm proud of being who we are. As we are, so in my painting, I want to give this message. That's why I made really strong women in my painting. They're not really smiling, but their faces have a little bit of a smile, like a proud smile. Their bodies might be topless, and sometimes they open their legs so wide [like men can do without repercussion]. The colors are so bright, like these women could dominate the audience of the people who look at the painting.”
Within a Burmese context, Chuu’s journey as an artist was perhaps just as bold and groundbreaking as her development as a feminist. The arts were not a vocation her family expected her to pursue, so she studied engineering in college, but sought out private art tutors in Mandalay. She began by learning realism, and then began to experiment with other art styles as well. Through her study of various techniques, she hoped to gain enough skill to be flexible with different styes, depending on her intent for a particular piece.
Chuu’s goal to portray Burmese female empowerment through her art is not only a response to the constant risk of assault that Burmese women face in the street or on the bus. It also questions the beliefs that underlie how women are expected to act in Burmese Buddhist culture, as was discussed at length in an earlier interview with Marlar. For example, Chuu notes, the lower parts of women’s bodies are considered “dirty” in Burmese culture, and their lower garments must not be washed or hung with men’s clothing for fear it will diminish the latter’s pon, or merit. “I don't want to live with this guilt,” Chuu explains. “I don't want to feel guilty. I don't feel this is fair, so this is not [represented] in my painting.” To further emphasize her message, Chuu attaches traditional Burmese fabric to some of her paintings.
When Chuu relocated to Yangon, she found that her art spoke to many Burmese women from her generation, who felt the same restrictions but did not exactly know exactly how to respond. “They are really open-minded, because they can see…what is this wrong thing in our culture,” she says. However, Chuu acknowledges that traditional thinking still dominated in the Myanmar countryside.
The sudden military coup came as a complete shock to the Burmese people, who responded with huge, peaceful, protest actions. Chuu connects this to her own “revolution,” which she had initiated through her art and activism. “This a big, enormous, and traumatized moment, that will shake the whole Myanmar,” she notes. Chuu’s hope is that the equality and empowerment she has been working towards for years can spread beyond the country’s urban centers, as Burmese women throughout Myanmar use this opportunity to challenge long-unchallenged cultural norms. For her, this is as personal as it is cultural, as she refers to her own family. “Maybe my grandma from that small town, or the really conservative Auntie from that tiny city from Shan State, maybe they will start thinking about it.”
Since the first days of the protest movement, the expression of female empowerment has coincided with confronting the Burmese military and their contemptuous disregard of basic freedoms, human rights and human dignity. Many protest leaders and organizers are young women, and when the streets became too dangerous, many accompanied men to train at resistance camps run by ethnic armed organizations (EAOs). And as for those “dirty” female garments Chuu mentioned earlier? Activists struck gold when they realized that simply hanging them above a street was a kind of deterrent against advancing male soldiers, who were so brainwashed by that superstition that they would not pass underneath for fear it would weaken their pon.
In the early days of the protests, when it was still relatively safe for people to assemble in non-violent gatherings outside, Chuu’s artistic skills were put to good use making signs that became very popular, eventually catching the eye of foreign journalists and observers. “Once I started to write one poster for one person, then a lot of people came constantly, asking for their poster! So at the end of the day, after I finished, instead of demonstrating on the streets, I'm an artist and I can paint. I think this can be a good way to participate in the protests, providing a poster to the people for what they want to tell and what they want to hold in their hand.” Chuu realized that this was her calling, and her gift to the revolution. Long lines would form as protestors waited their turn to explain the message they wanted to express, and the particular issue they wanted to protest, while she designed the sign around it.
As Chuu took on this task, she came to realize that many of her peers were also beginning to gravitate naturally towards those activities they were most skilled at so they too could support the movement. “If you can cook, you cook the food and you sell it for the funding, if you can make the music you do that, as well in every field, every industry, whatever you can do, even a small thing, is really helpful.” She transformed her studio apartment into a kind of warehouse, and also began to sell additional artwork on her Facebook page, with all funds going to support the Civil Disobedience Movement.
But this all changed on one particularly dark day. The military chose to respond to a peaceful protest with force, and their crackdown sent Chuu and all her friends literally running for their lives. “We couldn't even recognize Yangon as we remembered it. It was now like a real battleground.”
But just staying off the street didn’t bring Chuu any real safety. She realized that she urgently needed to empty her apartment of all protest-related material. Trying to accomplish this was tense and very dangerous with soldiers camped on nearly every corner; she described the attempt as something out of a Hollywood movie. Fortunately, she and her friends managed to clear out all the artwork just in time, as only a few days later, a dozen soldiers appeared at her door. The interrogation that followed was yet another traumatic event that completely changed the course of Chuu’s life.
“I realized at this moment, when they're in front of my door and asking questions, they can do whatever they want to me. I have no protection, I was scared. This is the moment that I started to think that maybe it's not safe for me to be here.” Chuu had never considered leaving the country before, but circumstances now forced her to reconsider. She realized that she could do more for the democracy movement by relocating to a place of safety where she could speak freely, than she could by staying in hiding in Myanmar. So she decided to go to France.
The transition there was not easy. Without friends or contacts, and unable to speak the language, she initially felt lonely and limited. But as an artist, she found that being in one of the world’s great art cities also presented its own valuable opportunities. Chuu eventually was able to connect with some galleries, and also developed her own kind of performance art to highlight the coup, which she has given in front of such iconic sites as the Louvre and Montmatre. Her work has been featured both in Time and on BBC.
While Chuu continues to do all she can to support the revolution against the Tatmadaw, she is already looking beyond what she regards as an eventual victory, towards the new Myanmar she hopes to see, one which will bring female empowerment into the Burmese cultural mainstream.
For the time being, she continues to make her voice heard through her art, and feels she is growing artistically in ways she never could have imagined. She admits that before the coup, she had doubted how powerful art can really be in affecting change within a society. “But after this happened to me, I realized maybe art is powerful, and what I'm doing is not nothing; that’s why the military moved near us, to take care of it. This art kind of punched them and hurt them! After this happened to me, it was really a stressful time and I cried a lot, but now, I realize that art is something that we can keep doing and we can keep punching them using art.”
While Chuu enjoys the opportunities she has in France to learn about new art forms, and integrate into a new culture, her heart remains with the Burmese people, and she recognizes that distance has taken a toll. However, from afar, she has come to appreciate her home country like never before.
“When I talk about the revolution, I talk about hope. And because I'm far away from home and I don't know when I will be able to go back, I miss Myanmar a lot. And now I can see more clearly the beauty of Myanmar and the deep, unique thing that made it beautiful. Myanmar is not only this coup d'etat and the killing, but we also have this beautiful culture. When I'm far away from home, I can see this more clearly.”
To learn more about Chuu’s work, take a look at her website, and also be sure to catch her as a speaker on an upcoming panel hosted by the International Republican Institute, by clicking the button below.