When Spring Never Comes

Rooted in the aftermath of Myanmar’s 2021 coup, the work reflects on memory and displacement where state violence and exile resonate within Europe’s shifting political landscape, as the past and present intertwine in the search for belonging and survival.

“You never had those yellow slippers,” my mother insists, her certainty making my memory feel like a betrayal. Yet I see them so clearly—the yellow soles, the black braid- ed straps—left behind on the day we moved. I was four and that yellow slipper has stayed with me ever since. But did I ever own those slippers? Over time, this memory clings uneasily to me, leaving me to question which version of the past truly belongs to me.

Every border crossed, every moment of waiting, forces me to relive the fear, anger and uncertainty as I fled in Myanmar after the 2021 military coup. What I escaped has followed me here in Germany, where promises of safety are broken and the cycle of exile continues.

“When Spring Never Comes” explores how memory and uncertainty intertwines. Where the past and present constantly merge and reshape each other. It delves into the artist’s emotional toll of displacement, alienation, and the struggle to reconcile. The work reflects the tension between remembering and forgetting, absence and reconstruction, past and present, across shifting landscapes of time and distance.