Today, The Eye of Photography is presenting a special edition on a little-known festival: the festival in Yangon, capital of Myanmar, which took place last month. It is an amazing event that gathered 100,000 visitors over two weeks of an uncountable number of exhibitions, projections, and events, with a strong emphasis on the Burmese photography scene, even more unknown, however rich in history and modernity. Today, you will find magnificent stories and images of this country, which was still very isolated until 2010, and which has been on the path to democracy for only two years. We are offering about thirty portfolios of both fixed and moving images. It is a dive into the daily life of a people who previously only made headlines in Western newspapers in cases of drama. As you will see in photos of the festival and its outdoor exhibitions, it was mainly about discovery, togetherness, and enjoyment. We found no evidence of any censorship by the city or government at the festival. Yangon Photo Festival is not in its first edition; this is already its ninth. French journalist specializing in South East Asia Christophe Loviny is the founder and has been the exhibition curator since 2009. We warmly wish to thank him, as well as Aline Deschamps, the journalist who prepared this entire special edition and, camera in hand, covered this magnificent event.
Jonas Cuénin
