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Keeping a Story Alive
Interview with Lukas Birk
- Vol. 3, no. 2
- 2018
- https://doi.org/10.47659/m5.004.int
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Keeping a Story Alive
Interview with Lukas Birk
- Vol. 3, no. 2
- 2018
- 09/04/2020

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The work of an Austrian artist Lukas Birk can be connected to some dilemmas of documentary photography. If the critique of the classical documentary photography stresses the responsibility towards the photographed subject and the problem of the exoticization for the western view, Birk’s work is often developed, displayed and distributed in the place where his projects are created. Therefore, the first audience of his projects are locals and are, in that way, maybe more closely connected to the project itself. He co-founded the Austro Sino Arts Program in China and founded a residency program SewonArtSpace in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The project Afghan Box Camera, which he developed with the ethnographer Sean Folley, focuses on the photographic praxis in Afghanistan, mainly on the type of a simple instant camera, which was traditionally used there but its use is now in decline. They investigated the origins, techniques and the many personal stories of the photographers using or having used this type of camera and also made instructional videos on how to build or use one. Attention to the overlooked photographic practices, history and contexts marks also his current project The Myanmar Photo Archive, a growing collection of Myanmar photographs that were created during and after the colonial period – the work of local photographers from that period has namely remained unknown until today.
- Keywords: local history, Myanmar photography, photographic backdrop, western view
Iza Pevec (born 1987) finished the studies of art history and comparative literature. She has been writing about art and culture for some time, she was writing for Radio Student and since 2014 she is also working for Radio Slovenia – Program Ars. As a young curator, she was part of the project Zagon of Gallery Škuc and part of the Incubator for young curators, the program of the Centre and Gallery P74. Since 2013, she is also writing for the Fotografija and Membrana magazines.
Lukas Birk is an artist, a storyteller and a conservator. His multi-disciplinary projects have been turned into films, chronicles and books. A large part of Lukas’ work deals with archival material he collects while traveling or while delving into his own background. His research of consists of careful investigations and explorations of imagery, very often in areas that have been affected by conflict and have not yet had the chance to present existing material in an artistic form. His narratives tackle recorded history by creating alternate storylines and fictional elements, alongside commonly accepted facts. His created “archival artworks” have little to do with institutional processes but rather revolve around personal stories, the desire to preserve their place in history, and Lukas’ own emotional attachment to them.
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In Myanmar, which was a completely closed country, they projected photographs of New York or Singapore or Japan onto backdrops and then people would pose like your regular 1990s young kid with a skateboard and a Sony Walkman which were both inaccessible in Myanmar.
- Cover photo: Colonial style photo backdrop at Burmese Photographers exhibition at The Secretariat, Yangon, 2018.
Reading time: 22 min.
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