Soft Ruins

Soft Ruins is a journey through fractured memories, left behind in Myanmar have distorted with time. It reflects a self—hauntingly familiar yet distant—shaped by guilt and loss, leading to a quiet reconciliation between who I once was and who I am now.

“A part of me has become the forest, rooted and unmoving, waiting for a wind that will never come. It matters not who departs first; the human condition is to linger in absence, to pass through stillness and invent meaning from the void. We wait, tethered by hope, even when spring never comes.”

In Soft Ruins, I journey through fractured memories that linger in the backdrop of Myanmar, my homeland. This project delves into photographs I captured before my forced exile after the recent military, what was once vibrant has now transmuted into distant , distorted by the passage of time and experience gone through displacement.

Soft Ruins reflects on the themes of alienation, fragmented identity, and displacement, showcasing how personal upheaval intertwines with global crises to reshape our sense of self and our connections to place. The visual narrative portrays a shift from clarity to obscurity, where each image, muted in color and blurred at the edges, serves as a metaphor for the instability and fluidity of memory.

The project unfolds through two interconnected segments. The first, The Archive of Memory, features unaltered photographs, preserving the authenticity of moments now past. These images stand as poignant reminders of a life deeply rooted in a place now out of reach. In contrast, The Fragmented Present involves re-scanned and artistically altered images that visually represent the fractured nature of my current identity and the emotional toll of revisiting these memories.

Soft Ruins involves engaging with my personal photo archive, using both naturally aged photographs and chemical manipulations of undeveloped films to highlight the metaphorical decay of memory. These techniques reflect the unpredictable nature of memory and identity reshaped by displacement. Furthermore, the narrative is enriched by incorporating text from my diary, with poetic entries that deepen the exploration of identity and memory’s instability.

As a final outcome, I aim that the exhibition encourages viewers to navigate a continuous narrative, where photographs blend into one another, reflecting the overlapping and fragmented nature of memory. The accompanying photobook, designed for interactive contribution, allows the audience to rearrange images and engage with the narrative on a personal level.

Set against the backdrop of Myanmar's political turmoil, Soft Ruins connects personal narratives to the global context of displacement and migration. The project captures the transformation of memories into abstract reflections of a bygone era, evolving from straightforward snapshots into complex explorations of displacement and identity.

Soft Ruins reflects on the themes of alienation, fragmented identity, and displacement, showcasing how personal upheaval intertwines with global crises to reshape our sense of self and our connections to place. Through Soft Ruins, I seek to provoke dialogue on the dynamic nature of memory as reshaped by the profound forces of personal and political displacement. This project not only challenges viewers to reflect on the transient nature of lived experiences and the enduring impact of history in shaping our perceptions of identity and belonging in our continuously evolving world.