from the ruins of British colonial rule

The enormous Secretariat, built by the British in the 1890s, was the major administrative center of its Burmese colony. It was here, in 1947, where Aung San, the father of independent Myanmar, was assassinated alongside several cabinet ministers. After the 1962 coup d’état and the installation of the Burmese Way to Socialism, the building slowly fell into disrepair. As the economy declined, it was eventually closed to the public. Military coups, crackdowns and civil conflict have left buildings in ruins and cultural spaces dismantled. The destruction is not just material; it extends to knowledge, art and memory. Archives are lost and histories are rewritten by those in power.

Lukas Birk in Yangon