Encounter: Exploring Artistic Resistance in the Myanmar Spring Revolution. Convened by Zoncy Heavenly
Tea Oval Session
Date: Wednesday, May 15th
Time: 19:00
Tea Oval Session is a monthly forum from May to November 2024 for new and emerging perspectives on artistic resistance against political dictatorships worldwide. Experiential knowledge shared by a global audience of contributors will contribute to a situational analysis of artistic conduct in the Myanmar Spring Revolution. The invited contributors and participants will analyse the most successful artistic tactics used in political reimagination. By the end of the sessions, the contributions and collective findings will be co-authored as a manual for Myanmar artists to exercise political imagination.
Zoncy Heavenly, an interdisciplinary artist from Myanmar, is leading this study inspired by the TIER methods of knowledge building. The first Tea Oval, which will be introduced on 15 May 2024 at 19:00, is just the first public encounter of her independent study journey. Members of the Myanmar artist community in Berlin will present their visual, literary, and musical protest art from the Myanmar Spring Revolution, setting the stage for future discussions on the collective understanding of artistic resistance. Green Tea from Southern Shan State and rice salad from the mainland will be served.
Suggested Reading Material before the session: https://thediplomat.com/2022/
No RSVP required
Event held onsite: Donaustr. 84, 12043 Berlin
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TIER is delighted to welcome Zoncy Heavenly, an interdisciplinary artist from Myanmar, as artist-in-residence at TIER. This program is supported by Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt through the Weltoffenes Berlin Fellowship program.
BIO
Zoncy Heavenly started her career as a performance artist in 2009 by participating in Japan’s Nippon International Performance Art Festival. Inspired by knowledge from different fields, she later worked with sound, photography, installation, and poetry to explore the intangible aspects of body-based art and the concrete impact of collective trauma with a phenomenological approach.
Born in 1987 in southern Myanmar, Zoncy has lived, worked, and studied in Yangon. She graduated from the University of Computer Studies in 2008 and joined the postmodern and Performance art classes at New Zero Art Space in Yangon. Since 2011, she has been involved in the anti-civil war movement and gained more awareness about gendered violence in the Myanmar civil war. She co-founded the Diverze Youth Art Platform to promote minority rights and culture through the arts. The platform is a network of artistic self-empowerment in a country that ranks between Afghanistan and North Korea, according to the Democracy Index. One of her most significant contributions is the feminist performance series, Unknown Women.
She was the design fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2019 and the visual art fellow of the DAAD Artist in Berlin Program in 2022. In 2024, she will conduct an independent study on artists’ methods in political (re)imagination with the support of TIER in Berlin as a Weltoffenes Berlin Program fellow.