"“Under socialism, we were completely isolated. The Op Art [Optical Art] movement of the 1960s passed by without us even being aware of it.”1 The quote is from artist and writer Ma Thanegi: political activist in the 1980s, she served jail for three years after the people’s uprising of 1988 in Myanmar.2 Today, she is mostly known for her deep knowledge about Myanmar’s culture that she shares through her written contribution to it. What she finds the most surprising about Myanmar though, is that changes occurred so unexpectedly fast after 2010.3 The first political shift of 2010–2011 after decades of military regime was a few years later reaffirmed through free and fair elections at the end of 2015, generating a new, transitional era.4 Significant metamorphoses in a country’s life never leave impact on a single level. It is a disruptive period for society, and for the different communities within one society – for better or worse. Based in Yangon between 2014–2015, as an art historian and curator, it appeared that the so called independent (contemporary) art scene was conveying the visible and palpable signs of a new epoch. My fieldwork started with the simple aim to have a better understanding of the fine art / visual art scene, but with the lack of available material, I was soon interviewing gallerists, through them artists and other actors of the scene, to gain an overview of its activity. It was striking that one had to “investigate” in order to find those places and creators. It was an existing scene, active, vibrant and engaged, but hidden, modest and fragile. Having later directly cooperated with some of the actors of the scene, being involved in some projects as organizer and consultant, allowed me a further insight into the network of independent actors coordinating the scene. The origin of the present research and study ensued from a concern over what the delicate net built by the independent art scene would face when encountering the powerful international art market. Currently, in the sort of “void” generated by the gradual withdrawal of the Censorship Regime (officially since 2012) and the slow evaporation of an autocratic narrative in daily life, “culture” as one, insoluble whole – as it was defined for decades from “above” – began to grow small branches, as nuances come slowly into consideration.5 The contrast between Myanmar’s isolated self, prior to the political shift and the context brought by the early global twenty-first century, implicative of an increasing and accelerated experience with the international scene, forecasted a challenging stage. My approach at the beginning of the present research was to consider the simple facts, or the simple non-existent facts: the consequences of Myanmar not having an operating institutional visual art system or structure that could balance the impact of a greater international exposure that the art scene was to face. Advancing in the research, it became more obvious that the institutional system I was looking for, existed through the alternative infrastructure that the independent (contemporary) art scene has brought to life, and how crucial substance it represented within the cultural sphere in regard of a sustainable approach and a genuine voice in the upcoming period. Research questions, Hypothesis, Outcome In a later phase, the research questions were then reframed as follows: What are the values of the independent contemporary art scene’s art practices and infrastructure in relation to the official narrative in power? How and why a superimposed art historical and heritage approach allows a deeper understanding in this regard? What role can the independent contemporary art scene play within the cultural field and in a broader sense, in society, during this present period of transition? How can the independent art scene maintain its own perspective and why is the scene’s sustainability so important if improvements are made at a higher, governmental level in terms of institutionalization? The study reflects a hypothesis which understands the independent contemporary art scene as a mindful site for an alternative discourse within society and which contributes to the (re)definition and (re)access of absent artistic, and so cultural narratives, as well as to the maintaining of the art scene’s integrity and continuity. I argue that as a counterbalance of the encapsulated, immovable and still dominant official set, the independent scene, very much alive, represents a genuine agenda through its artistic practices and infrastructure, coherent with the intrinsic cultural frame and context of Myanmar. The alternative discourse enabled by the scene being a flexible, and inclusive site is crucial for free expression, for building curiosity, but also for creating an open dialogue within society’s diversity and allow the narratives that were consciously or unintentionally deleted by the official discourse to (re)surface. As an outcome, the research to offers a “written photograph,” 6 a mechanism of smart practices based on existing projects that can serve as a reading tool, a sort of map to the independent 6 “Observations enable the researcher to describe existing situations using the five senses, providing a ‘written photograph’ of the situation under study,” Expression mentioned in: Kawulich, “Participant Observation as a Data 4 contemporary art scene’s intrinsic site and its activity. It contains some further, specific suggestions that may complete the working frame and can be developed in the future as potential individual plans of action. The “written photograph” may also be a tool for completing the “spaces of original possibles”7 for additional research. Methodology Participant observation could be the best term to describe the quality of the conducted fieldwork which served as a basis for the research.8 I intentionally superimposed the discourses of art history and heritage to be able to provide a more holistic approach that shifts from a conventional analysis and perhaps brings more questions to the surface than answers. The reason is that except for few texts, the accessible literature in English about the independent contemporary art scene, if taken as a comprehensive attempt to address its activity, accentuates its dynamics in line of a pre-existing regional–global format strictly through a contemporary art terminology. 9 My belief is that to understand the scene’s role and potential in the current cultural, transitional arena, it needs to be detached from an external context and merits an attempt to be visualized in relation to the ground it is connected to. This ground has been shaped for centuries by social and religious order before the latter was disrupted by colonial rule, followed by decades of a dominant narrative imposed by a military regime. In the recent past, the artistic scene has also evolved in its own cultural, social context towards which it had an ambiguous standpoint not being an “authorized voice.” The hypothesis unfolding through the Collection Method.”, herself quoting: Erlandson, David A.; Harris, Edward L.; Skipper, Barbara L. & Allen, Steve D. (1993). Doing naturalistic inquiry: a guide to methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. 7 Referring to Pierre Bourdieu, “The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed.” 8 Methodology of Participant Observation, in: Kawulich, “Participant Observation as a Data Collection Method,” 2. 9 Nathalie Johnston’s close insight of the past almost one decade of the Myanmar art scene was a turning point in my fieldwork. Her text (Johnston, “Intuitive Acts: The Evolution of Myanmar Contemporary Performance Art.”) about contemporary performance art in Myanmar (accessed November 2016) is one of the few written texts in English that attempts to vindicate pre-conceptions about the Myanmar contemporary art scene and focus on its evolution within its own context. 5 research is supported by a one-year fieldwork, the constant monitoring of the scene through the media, individual discussions with the independent scene’s actors and the feedback of a recent survey; meanwhile the study relies on a personal assumption embedded in a Western academic approach and an undeniable art historical terrain. The research experience cannot level a fully insider approach, and language barrier is an aspect that prevents an access to some nuances enclosed between the layers of other disciplines’ research too. The awareness of not being able to probably capture all threads at once is maintained throughout the study, especially as most of the concepts, time-frames, processes have to be further investigated individually; having said that, the angle proposed by the study may contribute to an ongoing dialogue precisely by bringing forward a – potential – semi-external reading. Sources The primary source for the study, fieldwork conducted between Spring 2014–Spring 2015, mainly in Yangon but not exclusively, entailed a series of interviews with artists, gallerists, curators, art experts from the country or from the region – either recorded or annotated; some of them were processed in the forms of articles and publications on different media platforms.10 This is complemented by archival material collected through this period including photo documentation of events and spaces, along with fieldnotes. The secondary literature was partly processed in Yangon – mainly publications nowhere else available. The second phase of processing was undertaken during the research in Budapest. A quantitative survey analysis in a form of a questionnaire was included in the research – the study comprises a subchapter 10 Gallery guide / short articles regularly published between September 2014-April 2015: Kálmán, “Gallery Guide - Myanmore.”, regular articles on the independent art scene published locally in In Depth Magazine: Kálmán, “My Paintings Are Not Beautiful (San Minn).”; Kálmán, “Show Me Your Hands And I’ll Tell You Who You Were (Htein Lin).”, Kálmán, “A Road Paved by Solid Concepts Meeting Artist Po Po.”, Kálmán, “Red, Black and Back (Aung Myint).”, and on a Hungarian art portal, Kálmán, “Iola Lenzi Interjú I., II. : ‘A Kortárs Művészet a Társadalmi Változás alakítója’; ‘Ellenérzéseim Vannak a Művészeti Piaccal szemben’ (Iola Lenzi Interview I, II: ‘Contemporary Art Asthe Driver for Social Change’; ‘I Rather Keep Away from the Market.’” 6 dedicated to its details and methodology (II.D., App. 1). The outcome as a mechanism of smart practices framed by the last subchapter (III.B.) is embedded in a regional angle through the short cases provided in subchapter III.A.2. The terminology regarding the art scene needs in almost every case clarification as many concepts are being (re)defined now by the scene and remain debatable, hence the necessity of a separate glossary. The web-references are abundant besides academic sources as it is sometimes the only source for English reference. Theoretical framework The study’s theoretical framework can be attached to two main approaches: critical heritage studies and (contemporary) art history. There is also an additional layer provided by postcolonial and Southeast Asian studies. In respect for the critical heritage approach of the study, I would like to mention Rodney Harrison and Laurajane Smith. Rodney Harrison defines heritage as a “dynamic process which involves competition over whose version of the past, and the associated moral and legal rights which flow from this version of the past, will find official representation in the present.”11 Two inter-related dynamic forces enter the understanding of heritage according to Harrison, a top- down, official approach, and a bottom-up, unofficial one, constituted by a local level. Critical heritage studies investigate these two processes, the relation between them. The present study wishes to approach as a start the case of the independent contemporary art scene partly through this scheme by understanding these processes framed around the notion of culture, and more properly fine art / visual art in the context of Myanmar. Harrison’s suggestion for a new dialogical model aims a broader approach between heritage and the “overwhelming presence of the past”: it “implies an ethical stance in relation to others, and a belief in the importance of acknowledging and respecting alternative perspectives and worldviews as a condition of 11Harrison, Understanding the Politics of Heritage, 8. 7 dialogue, and provides a way to connect heritage with other pressing social, economic, political and environmental issues of our time.”12 Through this approach, Harrison expects to offer an alternative to the “troubled late-modern” relationship with memory and the modernist binaries of cultural and natural which he finds underlied by the tangible / intangible division. It is in order to complete this frame that the notion of Living Heritage Approach is added independently of Harrison’s approach in the aim of generating a nuanced view of the cultural context relating to the independent contemporary art scene of Myanmar. Laurajane Smith on her side, nearly a decade before Harrison’s critical approaches published her “uses of heritage.” “At one level heritage is about the promotion of a consensus version of history by state-sanctioned cultural institutions and elites to regulate cultural and social tensions in the present. On the other hand, heritage may also be a resource that is used to challenge and redefine received values and identities by a range of subaltern groups.” Smith interprets the notion of a hegemonic “Authorized Heritage Discourse” (AHD) dependent on the specialist bodies’ power and institutionalized “in state cultural agencies and amenity societies.” This discourse is a synthesis of nation-narratives and aesthetic judgment of the expert; it is a self-referential discourse.13 The major challenge of the AHD is that it marks out who is entitled to speak in the name of the past.14 Smith’s approach helps situating the official narrative in regard of the position the independent scene holds. From an art historical point of view, the study stays within the frames of contemporary..."