Born in 1966 in Mezaligon, in what was then known as Burma and was renamed Myanmar in 1989, Htein Lin is a painter, installation and performance artist who has also worked as a comedian and actor. From 1962 to 2011, the country was ruled by a military junta and Lin was jailed from 1998 to 2004 for challenging the dictatorship. During his time as a political prisoner, he used what he could get hold of – such as bars of soap, cigarette lighters and prison uniforms – to make paintings and sculptures. Following his imprisonment, he left to live in London in 2006, finally returning to Myanmar in 2012.
After a bike accident in London that resulted in a broken arm, Lin was inspired to think about the qualities of plaster and, in 2013, began work on his large-scale installation A Show of Hands. Connecting the material to his experiences of imprisonment for his pro-democracy activism, Lin began plastering the arms of former political prisoners, honouring their stories through these sculptural replicas. A Show of Hands premiered at Lin’s 2015 exhibition The Storyteller, at the Goethe Villa in Yangon, which also included some of his prison paintings, detailing personal narratives of being in jail. The installation has now been brought to the US, opening this month at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Bufflao, New York. The work includes hundreds of plaster sculptures cast from the hands of former Burmese political prisoners, each accompanied by a card bearing information about the circumstances of the individual’s imprisonment. As part of this iteration at Albright-Knox, Lin will also cast the hands of former Burmese political prisoners who live in the local area around the museum.
