Beyond Pressure International Performance Art Festival
Yangon, Myanmar
06/12/08 – 14/12/08

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil
by Randy Gledhill

I have been back home for some time. When I first returned, I was in the throes of culture shock, sickness and delirium. After the holiday season, the dark wet cold Pacific Northwest winter lulled me a deep hibernation from which I am only now awakening. I have been sleeping as if hypnotized by a somnambulist.

After the endless Asiatopia artist party in Bangkok, with Stockholm Syndrome overtaking the exhibitionist artist hostages, while Yellow and Red held the airports as their private Club Med, I resigned myself to the fate that the possibility of getting to Yangon was probably futile. However, the Thai crisis was eventually negotiated and I was able to (a week late) fly into the infamous evil empire. I knew that I would not be allowed to perform in public, as I had intended (I wanted to make an intervention on the street). From the recent e-mail correspondences, I assumed that I would not perform at all. Still, I wanted to go and see.

Randy performing

The Asian historical/political subtext surrounding Beyond Pressure was dominant and controversial. The courageous, naïve and stubborn desire of the BP team to somehow present this festival …come Hell or high water… was unstoppable (see the e-mail subtext [please see the post Beyond Pressure: Part I – ed]). I had somehow landed in the middle of a trans-national Asia-centric art debate and politik. Anyhow, I had been invited and I showed up. I was about to engage with the local Myanmar artists. Activist artists in a restricted society – something I have long respected and researched. As the only non-Asian artist and one of the few participating international artists, I was an exotic and desired personae. I felt honored.

I was greeted at the Yangon airport on Sunday December 7 and shuttled to the Motherland Inn and a comfortable room above a local auto mechanics’ compound. Upon arrival in the lobby, I briefly met two departing foreign artists; Sharon Chin from Malaysia and  Hong-o-bong from Korea (both still tipsy from the previous evening celebration of the first officially sanctioned public performance art event in the history of Myanmar). I was informed that I had missed part 1 of the festival, and part 2 was scheduled for the next weekend (after my departure). I was, as the only visiting foreign artist in attendance, to become the whole of part 1a. Confused, I was whisked off to meet artists at the new Zero artist gallery then to Chinatown to eat and drink into the wee hours.

I had two glorious days; hosted, entertained, and toured by my growing circle of new friends. A cultural tourist/guest guided through an exotic, despondent, broken, proud, devout land – where the future and optimism challenged the hard, oppressive reality of daily political oppression and exploitation. My eyes were being opened to the policized south.

Then it hit. Like an internal physical bomb. Food poisoning. I became, in the dark of the night, outrageously, deliriously sick. As the dogs howled at the full moon and the city answered another blackout with the sounds of diesel generators, I became violently ill. I thought I was going to die.

The next morning, I was beckoned by my hosts to go and inspire and emote. My new artist friends were excited by the promise of information, vision, opportunity and discourse… and to seeing a rare window into the art world outside. Delirious, I seemed to find a new lucidity and succeeded in talking for three hours (broken only by two extreme bouts of nausea). The exchange was both exciting and dynamic. I was unfortunately in no shape to join the evening party to celebrate the arrival of Tran Luong from Vietnam. That night the dogs again howled.

My final day in Yangon, still sick. I was escorted back to the YMCA to show dvd excerpts from the LIVE Biennale and my own works, then to perform a short, improvised new piece. The show must go on. Sweating and hallucinating, I somehow managed to complete the action to a rousing round of applause. In my honor, there were memorable actions performed by Aung Pyi Sone & Nyen Way, and by Nyo Win Maung. These were the only performances by Myanmar artists that I was able to witness. I was thoroughly engaged and craved to see more. The art was thoughtful, clear, politicized and immediate. Everyone attended my farewell party that night at Motherland Inn. I drank only water.

Workshop conducted by Tran Luong (Vietnam)

My plane took off the next morning at 7am. As I looked out over the Burmese landscape, I wondered what lay in the future for this exotic, tortured land. The repression was invisible and real. I had been shown incredible compassion, concern and generosity. The artists were initiating change. Courage to organize, activate and speak up in a repressive regime is foreign to me, but to my new friends it is a daily necessity. A constant game of cat and mouse. Against all odds, in spite of the obstacles and controversies, the Myanmar performance artists had succeeded. They accomplished something revolutionary. Art beyond pressure.

Although it would have been an easy route to again cower and host an underground event in private, the BP Myanmar artists and organizers demanded from their government the right to be publicly seen and heard. Through their tenacity and courage, they succeeded in negotiating permission, for the first time, to exist and to practice their art form. I applaud them and congratulate the BP director, Moe Satt, on this unparalleled accomplishment. Throughout the period leading up to the Beyond Pressure International Performance Art Festival, there was much controversy and negotiation between the organizers and the invited international artists; around the issues of art, censorship, official sanction and safety. This was democratically debated through an open ongoing e-mail network between the artists and the festival organizers. I am presenting excerpts of this as a document describing, what I think is, a crucial discourse surrounding global issues of art and society in the 21st century. Freedom of expression.

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Randy Gledhill is a performance artist and executive director of LIVE Biennial