Htein Lin is a Burmese (Myanmar) artist (painting, installation, performance), curator and writer. He has also worked as a comedian and actor.
Born in 1966 in Ingapu, Ayeyarwady Region, Myanmar, he was active in the 1988 student movement at Rangoon University where he studied law until the university was closed. Going underground after the military takeover, he spent almost four years in a refugee camp on the Indian border, where he studied art with Mandalay artist Sitt Nyein Aye, and in an ABSDF (Northern Branch) student rebel camp at Pajau on the Chinese border. In Pajau, he and other students were detained for around 9 months from 1991-1992 and suffered physical abuse at the hands of other students in the most notorious episode of the opposition group’s history, which he wrote about in his autobiography Ma Pa and appeared as a comic book (Pajau) by Wooh.
Escaping and returning to Yangon in May 1992, he worked as a comic film actor. He held two solo shows in 1996 and 1997. Arrested in 1998 and jailed on spurious accusations of opposition activity, he spent almost seven years in jail (1998-2004). During this time, he developed his artistic practice, using items available to him like bowls and cigarette lighters in the absence of brushes to make paintings and monoprints on the cotton prison uniform.
Htein Lin pioneered performance art in Burma in 1996 and continued to perform for fellow inmates while in prison. Following his release, his Rangoon street performance ‘Mobile Art Gallery/Mobile Market’ in May 2005 led to 5 more days of interrogation. During the period 2006-2011 he also performed in the UK and Thailand, at the US Library of Congress (2009) and at festivals and events in Finland, France, Philippines, Japan, Malaysia,
and Bangladesh. Many of his performances are intended to raise awareness of the political situation in Burma. Htein Lin practises vipassana meditation daily, and a major inspiration for his work is Buddhism whose themes, stories and philosophy he incorporates in his art.
After leaving Burma for the first time in 2006, Htein Lin regularly participated in exhibitions and art festivals globally, as well as events and projects to promote freedom of speech, particularly in Burma. He is a founding member of the Burmese language arts website www.kaungkin.com to which he contributes poetry, prose, and artistic criticism. In 2010 he curated the first Burmese Arts Festival in London. In recent years he has expanded
his practice to include 3D work and video.
Htein Lin moved back to Myanmar in July 2013, having lived in London from 2006-2013. After returning, he took advantage of the new reform atmosphere to embark on a major documentary and participatory performance piece, A Show of Hands, capturing in plaster the arms of hundreds of Burma’s many thousands of former political prisoners. In March 2015 and March 2017, he was Co-Director for the first two My Yangon My Home arts festivals which involved public art, installations and performances around Yangon, and in 2018 he curated ‘Seven Decades’, a major group exhibition at the historical Secretariat building in Yangon, with art works to reflect 70 years of Myanmar independence.
Since the military coup on 1 February 2021, Htein Lin has continued to live and work in Myanmar, spending three months in Insein Jail from August-November 2022, together with his wife. He is a founding member of the Association for Myanmar Contemporary Arts (AMCA) (registered in the USA, 2021) which is supporting artists residencies and grants for Myanmar artists.
Htein Lin currently lives and works mostly in Southern Shan State, Myanmar where he and his daughter Kyel Sin Lin have established a gallery and art education space (Coming to Kalaw) and has plans for a future artists residency and sculpture park at Grace Estate, Pindaya.