While contention remains over whether the work is street art or vandalism, drawings and messages have been springing up on walls all over the country since the return to civilian rule in 2011.
Two anonymous graffiti artists in the city of Yangon say their work allows them to comment on the state of their country. “There hasn’t been serious punishment. No artists have been arrested and sent to jail but some artists have had to sign papers saying they won’t do it again,” said one of them.
Another artist said they abide by a strict code. “We may be regarded as ‘destroyers’ but we don’t do it on schools, churches or other religious buildings. We don’t go after these places. We target places we don’t like,” he said.
Emboldened, street artists are hitting Yangon to comment on everything from power shortages to money-laundering. Their number has doubled to about 50 in the past year, says Aung, a painter and freelance graphic designer who has documented the rise of street artists. Drawing inspiration from Yangon’s nascent hip-hop and punk scenes, or from cult British artists such as Banksy, they find each other through Facebook or after dark out on the streets with paint cans in hand.
Graffiti of an electrical socket trailing a wire, usually accompanied by the slogan “Plug the city”, became common in Yangon in May, when frustration over chronic power shortages led to nationwide protests. “We didn’t do it on the people’s behalf, but because we ourselves were affected by the lack of electricity,” says Twotwenty, 27, the pseudonym for a member of the collective Yangon Street Art, known by its plump, multicoloured tag “YSA”. Only 25 percent of Myanmar’s 60-million population has access to the national grid, according to the World Bank.
A sketch of a washing-machine beside the initials of some well-known Myanmar banks refers to their suspected role in money-laundering.
“Zoo, or animal prison?” asks graffito on the wall of Yangon Zoological Garden, faintly recalling a message supposedly written by Banksy on London Zoo’s penguin enclosure: “We’re bored of fish.”
Graffiti artists also fought a paint war against an unpopular Yangon mayor. A brigadier general in the army, Aung Thein Linn won a seat for the junta-created Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in a fraudulent 2010 election. By way of protest, street artists defiantly tagged the wall of his official residence
2012.08.27 Express Tribune - graffiti-artists-thrive-in-reform-era-myanmar
2012.08.26 Euronews- graffiti-springs-up-on-walls-of-myanmar