Sawangwongse Yawnghwe

Sawangwongse Yawnghwe was born in Shan State of Burma 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 (1948–1962) after the country gained independence from Britain in 1948. Shwe Thaik died in prison following the 1962 military coup by General Ne Win. Since then, Yawnghwe’s family was driven into exile. They stayed in Thailand, then escaped to Canada, where Yawnghwe grew up and received education. He now lives and works in the Netherlands. Yawnghwe’s painting and installation practice engages politics with reference to his family history as well as current and historical events in his country. Family photographs also provide the basis for a pictorial language through which he explores events in the country, suggesting that existing and available archives cannot reveal a nation’s entire truth. In addition, Yawnghwe’s work of maps charts the conflicts between drugs such as heroin and amphetamines, revolutionary armies, minority ethnicities, mining and gas pipelines, the armament of generals, as well as state genocide against its minorities. He intends to bring discernible order to a complex political situation.

Sawangwongse Yawnghwe (b. 1971, Burma) lives and works in Amsterdam. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Emily Carr University in Vancouver (1993) and his Master’s from Concordia University in Montreal (1995). In 2022, he was a finalist for the 13th Benesse Prize. He has exhibited internationally, including the Thailand Biennale Chiang Rai (Thailand, 2023), Singapore Biennale (Singapore, 2022); Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh, 2020), 1st Bankok Biennale (Thailand, 2018), the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Australia, 2018), the 12th Gwangju Biennale Exhibition (Korea, 2018), Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh, 2018), Qalandiya International (Jerusalem, 2016), Steirischer Herbst (Austria, 2016), and Dak'Art 2016 (Senegal, 2016). His work has also been shown at HKW Berlin, Germany; Museum Arnhem, Netherlands; Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, China; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland; MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Thailand; Museum of Fine Arts Taichung, Taiwan; Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Thailand; Goethe Institut, Myanmar; Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. His works are housed in the collections of MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Thailand and Singapore Art Museum.