Guided Tour of "Mingalaba: A Journey Through the Myanmar Photo Archive"

as part of the 9th Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF)

Date: 21st Oct 24 (Sun) & 26th Oct 24 (Sat)

Time: 10.30am—11.30am (Sun) & 11.30am—12.30pm (Sat)

Meeting Point: Riceball Photography (3 Coleman Street, #01-04 Peninsula Shopping Centre, Singapore 179804)

Registration: Entry by Donation

Guides: Kirti Upadhyaya [IN], Curator of "Mingalaba", Lukas Birk [AT], Founder of Myanmar Photo Archive

Capacity: Limited to 12 pax

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Advisory:

• Assistive Listening Devices will be provided for this tour. Earpieces will be provided but you are more than welcomed to provide for your own earpiece (3.5mm jack).
• The tour will start promptly at the stipulated timing — we seek your help to be punctual and to arrive at the venue at least 15 mins in advance to faciliate registration & issuance of the devices, so that the tour can start promptly.
• Participants are advised to come in a comfortable attire and footwear.

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About the Exhibition

Mingalaba: A Journey Through the Myanmar Photo Archive / မင်္ဂလာပါ: မြန်မာ့ဓာတ်ပုံမော်ကွန်း၏ဖြတ်သန်းခြင်းခရီး invites audiences to engage with Myanmar through a vast, visual archive.

Mingalaba is a playful experiment that brings old images to new audiences. It presents the archive not as a dusty, forgotten storage space but as an active space for exploration. Audiences are invited to journey through Peninsula Shopping Centre, Excelsior Shopping Centre, and Peninsula Plaza, where they will encounter different collections of images from the Myanmar Photo Archive (MPA) embedded in the everyday spaces often frequented by the local Burmese community and photographers alike. Each intervention introduces Myanmar—its diverse cultural activities, histories, and multi-ethnic environments—to audiences through the eyes of many different photographers.

Opening up archives and bringing images that preserve significant moments from the past–whether personal or political, quotidian or historical–to audiences in real life is significant as access to the past is not always granted. This is the case in Myanmar, where archives, mainly visual archives, are not publicly accessible. The MPA is a rare exception. It is the largest visual archive of Myanmar, containing more than 40,000 photographs, negatives, and paraphernalia that illustrate the country's visual culture. These materials are accessible to audiences online (through the MPA's website) and offline through exhibitions and programmes such as Mingalaba.

The archive was founded by Lukas Birk and is currently run with his team, May Hia Myat Thu, Rita Khin and Khun Kyi in Myanmar. The archive is supported by the Goethe Institut Myanmar and has initiated commissions and education programmes for Myanmar citizens to engage with and rethink these archival materials.

W: myanmarphotoarchive.org

Host or Publisher Singapore International Photography Festival