TERASIA Artist Interview Vol. 5: Zun Ei Phyu (Artist)

Zun Ei Phyu is an artist who engages in a wide range of projects across disciplines. She creates artworks not only as an individual artist but also as a community. In the turbulent times that Myanmar faces, she produced a new theatre performance titled လှည်းဘီးရာများ Markings of the Cartwheel and organized events for it as part of "TERASIA Online Week 2022 + Onsite". We spoke to her about her work: everything from her creative practice to her participation in TERASIA.

The Path of Art, The Path of Medicine

Zun Ei Phyu (Zun Ei for short) has two faces: an artist and a doctor. First, we asked her how she came to do the activities she does now.

“When I was six years old, there was an art competition for children, and I said, ‘I want to participate.’ I think it was about the prevention of drugs or something like that [laughs]. My school also submitted my paintings to international competitions for children too, and in fourth grade, I won the gold prize for the Fukuoka Child Art Competition in Japan, which made my parents realize that I had potential in art. After that, my parents found an art teacher for me, and that’s when I really started painting more seriously.” 

Her very first mentor when she began painting was her own father.

“My father told me, ‘When you make something, the idea behind it is the most important. Choose whatever method that lets you express the idea best.’ He was a really creative person working in animation, so he was my role model.”

“As I grew older, I was always busy in the art room. Eventually, when I was in secondary school and about to enter high school, my parents made me transfer to a different school. They said, ‘You should study a bit more’ [laughs]. But the principal at my new school looked at my grades and records, and encouraged me to keep painting and participating in competitions.”

In this way, Zun Ei started her career as an artist in her teens, but she later went up to medical school and began to work as a doctor.

“It was my family’s wish that I become a doctor. Ever since I was little, I’d never even thought of becoming a doctor—I hated taking medicine, and I didn’t like that hospital smell either. But I ended up studying medicine, and I decided to specialize in oncology. I chose it because I wanted to alleviate the death of those people with terminal illness.”

As she worked in medicine, she also wished to return to art someday. Her interactions with the community gradually made those two paths in her life intersect.

“Since my time at medical school, I’ve been volunteering in the community—with young students at schools, elderly people in retirement homes, and so on. My interest in socially engaged art and community-based art projects grew from that context. In time, I got involved in the kind of projects that combined social development and community art.”

Performance in a Funeral Site: The Concept of “TERA Myanmar”

It was the Thai director, Narumol Thammapruksa (Kop), who drew Zun Ei to TERASIA in 2020.

“When I heard about the concept of TERASIA and saw the recorded performance of Tera, it truly resonated with me. I don’t have a background in theatre, but I was already interested in the performing arts. I had the feeling that if I brought TERA into Myanmar, I might be able to explore themes that are considered traditionally and culturally taboo in the local context of Myanmar. And that this would benefit not only us artists, but also the community and the people in the audience. I thought it would be a good opportunity to show that art can thematize and bring together attitudes towards death and their cultural contexts.”

When asked about her initial plan for the project that she had in 2020, Zun Ei shared some fascinating ideas with us.

“I was picturing a series of performances, referencing funeral traditions and stories of each region, and each ethnic group of Myanmar. I got in touch with artists, musicians, and traditional musicians from different regions.”

“Myanmar is a Buddhist country (of Theravada Buddhism), but under that big umbrella, there are various subcategories, with diverse traditions in each one. They vary in views of life and death, including what happens after death. These things also vary between regions and ethnic groups.”

“At the same time, I wanted this to be an occasion for bringing artists in Yangon and Mandalay together. I envisioned a project in which we can all learn from each other, across regions, generations, and genders.”

At first, she thought of performing at funeral sites. It’s clear that she already had a solid foundation for the project early on and was making steady progress in the preparations.

“I looked for old funeral sites that weren’t in use anymore. There was one that had been used by a certain ethnic group in the past. One of our artists had a connection to the authorities who manage such historic places, so we actually contacted the authorities and were discussing the details.”

Zun Ei’s reasons for choosing the funeral as a motif also lay in the nature of funeral customs in Myanmar.

“In Myanmar, funerals vary not only from regional differences, but also from many other factors, such as whether the deceased was an ordinary person or a monk. The customs and cultures of monks’ funerals are especially rich, involving performances of an elaborate ensemble of hsaing waing, of traditional dances, and of customary phrases. And if the deceased is an eminent person, such as the leader of a monastery or a high priest with a degree in Buddhism, the funeral becomes grand. Such funerals aren’t limited to ethnic minorities; anyone can attend, and in some regions, the whole village or town might attend the funeral if someone prominent dies.”

“But lately, funerals like that are becoming less common in Yangon, and you can’t experience it unless you go to other regions. I’ve never attended a monk’s funeral myself. It's expensive to arrange such funerals—depending on the circumstances, the funeral can even last for about a week.” 

Taking the funerals of Myanmar as a motif, the project was steadily gaining momentum. However, in 2021, Zun Ei and her group were forced to shelve their plans for TERA Myanmar due to issues involving public health, the economy, and politics.

“We were planning about seven to nine performances in total. But with what was happening in the country, it became impossible to do any of them.”

Starting Fresh: The Collaboration with Thukhuma Khayeethe Theater

The plans for their performances were suspended, and the people of Myanmar continued to face harsh conditions. In the meantime, the international artists of TERASIA decided to have a meeting in person, and Zun Ei flew from Myanmar to Jakarta as well. This was in September 2022.

Zun Ei (left) and Narumol Thammapruksa (Kop) in Jakarta

After the artists shared ideas together, they each dived into preparing and creating their respective projects for TERASIA Online Week 2022 + Onsite. Despite the unstable conditions of her country, Zun Ei continued her creative practice in Myanmar.

“I was interested in the positions and the roles of the young generation in Myanmar, so I started thinking about working with Thukhuma Khayeethe Theater (TKT) to put together a TERA-like performance with youths.”

The Thukhuma Khayeethe Theater, also known as TKT (their name means “travellers in art”), is a Yangon-based theatre troupe who encourage citizens to get involved in their society and community, through theatre and performing arts.

Thukhuma Khayeethe Theatre

“Thila Min is the director of TKT, and he is essentially their representative and leader. I knew him from before, but it was the first time for us to collaborate on a project. I’d also met Soe Moe Thu, the producer and an actor of TKT, in a previous workshop.”

“TKT does all kinds of activities with communities—they go to villages to do some training with the residents there, and they hold theatre workshops with people of various ethnic groups, too. Since I’ve been engaging with communities for a long time as well, I thought we had that in common, and it would be nice to work with them.”

Zun Ei and TKT began to weave together a new performance in the form of Forum Theatre. First of all, they held a workshop with youths in Yangon between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Why did they focus on the young generation?

“The young people have taken on a very significant role in Myanmar's society today, and we are grateful for them. Back in 2022—this was my personal interest—I wondered where those young people actually were at that moment. There were people who left the country, those who stayed, and those who wanted to leave but couldn’t... Of course, there were people who were suffering psychologically as well. I wanted to know where the young people were, and what they were thinking about, at that moment in time.”

TKT was used to working with the young generation too. Zun Ei shared her interests with the members of TKT, and it was settled that the core of their concept would be what the young people today think about death and the life after death.

“In normal circumstances, death is something distant for young people in the midst of growth—it’s something they usually don’t think about so much. But with the many crises in recent years, death became immediate for them too, and perhaps it rose to the surface of their minds as a new theme. I wanted to know how the young people saw not only their future in general, but also death and the afterworld. I also thought about how the older generations like us can support them.”

Exploring Death in the Eyes of Youths

Zun Ei designed the workshop with TKT. The main facilitators were Zun Ei, Soe Moe Thu, and the performer Nyan Gyi.

“It was a workshop that included a variety of activities, such as interactive theatre exercises, drama, games, storytelling, questions, performances, and so on. I led the part when we asked the participants about death. To draw out their thoughts, I first asked about acts of good and evil. Using storytelling methods as a way in—including stories about killing, stealing, helping others—I found out how they think about things. Next, we thought about what happens as a consequence of good deeds and bad deeds. And then we moved on to questions about death, how they understand it. This part was very interesting because we heard such different answers.”

Although Myanmar can be called a Buddhist country, its population follows various religions, including Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. How do the youths of Myanmar picture the afterlife?

“The idea that ‘if you practice good deeds, something good will happen after death’ is a fundamental part of any religion, not just in Myanmar. In the case of Buddhism, we believe that you will be reborn into a better life; in Christianity or Islam, you go to a better place. The concept of ‘you reap what you sow,’ or ‘cause and consequence,’ is quite universal, I feel. But because of the social upheaval, I think people began to doubt whether they could really go to a better place by doing good deeds, and to wonder whether people who did bad deeds might always win.”

The workshop proceeded through a wide range of questions and answers between the facilitators and the participants. It’s likely that the volatile state of society has affected the way the youths think about the world.

“Let’s say someone commits robbery with good intentions, to give to the needy—is that still a bad deed? If it benefits a greater number of people, does that justify killing? When we gave the questions a little twist like that, the thoughts and answers of the participants changed as well.”

“In some cultures, people used to shy away from discussing death because it’s taboo or bad luck. But things changed with Covid—we were in a situation where people of any generation could die at any time. In that sense, I think talking about death has become more acceptable.”

A Performance of Forum Theatre: "လှည်းဘီးရာများ Markings of the Cartwheel"

“I put together a video of the workshop and the feedback from participants. Thila Min worked off of that material—what we discovered about the youths’ thoughts on the current situation, especially about death—and started writing a script.”

In October 2022, လှည်းဘီးရာများ Markings of the Cartwheel was performed in Yangon. The audience sat in a circle, and half of them were the workshop participants. At the sound of a gong, four corpses wrapped in a straw mat begin to move. In a liminal space that seems to hang between the present life and the next life, the characters question the audience about each other’s past deeds. The audience answers every question by submitting a white or black piece of paper.

The performers ask: “Audiences, please decide. Where will he reach? White or Black? Where will he reach?”

“This format of throwing questions at the audience, as in Forum Theatre, was Thila Min’s idea. Also, we all saw the recordings of TERA in Kyoto and Thai’s TERA เถระ, so we were inspired by the question and answer elements of both productions. In TERA in Kyoto in particular, the questions keep coming at a quick pace. Rather than waiting for the answers to each person, it’s more an occasion for self-reflection, as if each person is answering the question for themselves—we talked about that in our group, too.”

Zun Ei shared two occurrences during their performance that left an impression on her.

“There was one person who was sitting towards the back instead of joining the circle because they were frightened of the sound of the gong. I thought it might be scary for them to sit in the dark, so I told them that they’re welcome to step outside, but they wanted to stay. Every time there was a question, they walked up from the back to cast their vote.”

“Another member of the audience started crying during the performance. Afterwards, she came up to Soe Moe Thu and asked if she could give him a hug. She said the character he portrayed reminded her so much of her father. There were moments like that.”

The interactive format of the performance, in which the audience participated by answering questions, must have made the piece feel very close to reality.

“The actors were saying that when they were lying down like a corpse, wrapped up in the straw mats, they felt as if they had really died. Sometimes it does happen that people get buried or cremated just like that, wrapped in mats, when they can’t have a proper funeral.”

TERASIA Online Week 2022: Myanmar 2022

The creative team of Markings of the Cartwheel: (from left) Nyan Gyi, Su Myat Noe Oo, Thila Min, Zin Pyae Pyae Phyo, Zun Ei Phyu, and Soe Moe Thu. 

Beyond "Markings of the Cartwheel": Carrying the Essence of Life

In November, Zun Ei and TKT held a screening as part of “TERASIA Onsite 2022 in Yangon.” In addition to the recording of their new performance, they also screened the Japanese and Thai versions of TERA and hosted a discussion about the work.

TERA เถระ screening at "TERASIA Onsite 2022 in Yangon"

Discussions about the work at "TERASIA Onsite 2022 in Yangon"

Now that she has completed this series of activities, Zun Ei is looking ahead towards the future.

“I’m in talks with TKT to collaborate in the future as well. We’re hoping to hold more workshops and projects for youths in other regions, combining TKT’s drama technique and my ways of expression.”

In 2024, all the participating artists of TERASIA are planning to gather in Indonesia for Sua TERASIA.

“We haven’t decided yet whether we’ll make something new or adapt Markings of the Cartwheel, but if we put on an interactive performance in Indonesia, we expect the work will change dramatically depending on the audience. The last performance presented questions based on the local context of Myanmar, so we would need to think about adjusting the content to match the audience.”

Finally, we asked how Zun Ei herself had changed through her participation in TERASIA.

“I was first drawn to TERA because it was concerned with death as its main concept, and the performance that I had envisioned in the beginning focused on funerals and the afterlife. But now, after going through this whole process, I came to think that in order to think and talk about ‘death,’ I have to reflect deeply on ‘life.’ Thinking about the essence of life—what life is, what it means to be alive—is crucial to thinking about death. Perhaps that’s something that changed inside me.”

(Interview and text by Saori Azuma, English translation by Yui Kajita. The interview took place in May 2023.)

Zun Ei Phyu
Zun Ei is a medical doctor and multidisciplinary artist. Zun Ei’s primary interest concerns public participatory art works and community art projects. Main themes of her works are social and ecological issues related to children and elderly people. During the different crises in her country and around the world, her works become involved in peace, justice and psychosocial rebuilding toward resiliency. Her artworks are collected not only locally but also internationally.
She has been involved in many international art projects and worked with different communities across South East Asia and some European countries. She is a fellow of Mekong Cultural Hub and is currently working as a program manager for the Association for Myanmar Contemporary Arts (AMCA).

Saori Azuma
Saori Azuma is an editor and writer. Her work spans a broad range of activities, such as editing documentations on art projects, conducting research for and managing various conceptual programs, producing theatre pieces, and organizing drama/art projects outside the theatre.
https://www.imatheater.com/

Yui Kajita　
Yui Kajita is a translator, illustrator, and literary scholar, currently based in Germany. She completed her PhD in English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Shortlisted for the 5th JLPP International Translation Competition and longlisted for the John Dryden Translation Competition, she translates prose fiction, poetry, children’s books, folktales, and texts on art. Her publications include "Walter de la Mare: Critical Appraisals" (co-edited, 2022).
https://yuikajita.com