Another Spring is a solo presentation of Myanmar artist Htein Lin’s latest series of work. A suite of paintings rendered on longyi-s, the traditional garb of the country, they pay tribute to an installation of longyi paintings enacted by the artist on a Yangon street in March 2021, at the height of the protests against the recent military coup. Myanmar belief holds that it is detrimental to a man’s hpone, or male glory, to walk beneath women’s garments that are worn below the waist, and the street installation, which was intended to slow down army soldiers, was quickly destroyed. The exhibition also recalls Htein Lin’s time at a student rebel camp on the Myanmar-China border in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of his participation in the pro-democracy uprising of 1988. The paintings in the show depict victims of the violence that followed the coup d’etat last year, as well as channeling agonizing memories of the artist’s past experience of persecution. They are stark reminders of the cost of power, and its brutal possibilities, on individual lives.
