Sawangwongse Yawnghwe. Photo by Kris Berendsen Sawangwongse Yawnghwe
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe was born in the jungle village Na Lek (“iron field”, denoting an infertile, barren spot) in Burma’s Shan State in 1971. He comes from the Yawnghwe royal family of Shan. His grandfather, Sao Shwe Thaik, was the first president of the Union of Burma (1948-1952) after the country gained independence from Britain in 1948. Shwe Thaik died in prison following the 1962 military coup led by General Ne Win, which drove Yawnghwe’s family into exile. After spending his formative years in Chiangmai, his family fled to Canada. He currently lives and works in the Netherlands.
Yawnghwe’s works critique dominant Burma-centric artistic and historical narratives by presenting a personal, counter-historiography. He combines investigative methodology with a philosophical approach to state-centric historiography, in which narratives of non-Burman minorities are dismantled and erased.
Exhibitions
