INTERSECTIONS

Diary From the Dark #20

About Artwork

Artist Profile

Aung Ko is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, film, installation, and performance. His practice offers a sustained commentary on the political and social realities of contemporary Myanmar, engaging with themes of censorship, power, injustice, and survival. Central to his work is the transformation and reuse of materials, allowing objects to evolve over time through processes of rearrangement and reinvestment.

In 2007, Aung Ko initiated the Thuye’dan Village Art Project in his native village, a long-term, community-based initiative developed in collaboration with local residents and invited artists. Situated near an ammunition factory and shaped by geographical isolation, the project responds to conditions of restriction and fear through collective artistic action.

Following the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Aung Ko was forced into exile. He now lives and works in Paris, where he continues to develop socially engaged and site-responsive practices, including community-based projects that extend his commitment to shared authorship and material transformation.