Min Thein Sung
APT8
Born 1978, Mawlamyine, Myanmar
Lives and works in Yangon, Myanmar
Min Thein Sung creates playful and personal works that draw on daily life in Myanmar. His 'Another Realm' series, by focusing on the simple handmade toys that people created as copies of foreign toys seen on TV and in books, references the years that Myanmar was restricted from international trade and commercial mass-production. He recreates these toys as soft sculptures in linen, with giant horses, elephants, tanks and guns that hang like makeshift puppets, or smaller objects fashioned out of the local handmade shan paper. His work for APT8 Another Realm (horses) 2015 is a large, multi-headed horse sculpture displayed against a wallpaper of comic book pages. 'Another realm' is symbolic of the slippage that occurs between image and representation when a community is isolated from the world, but also celebrates a spirit of creativity, imagination and adaptability.
Min Thein Sung / Myanmar, b. 1978 / Another Realm (Horse) 2014 / Linen, aluminium wire, copper wire, rope, ed.2/3 / Installation view, 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, Japan, 2014 / Photograph: Fujino Takuto / Image courtesy: The artist and Fukuoka Asian Art Museum / © Min Thein Sung