I am currently at work curating a selection of images for a project tentatively titled Exploring Burmese Borderworlds.
Over ten weeks in the Spring of 2025, I participated in a story-telling workshop with members of an underground Burmese media organization based in Mae Sot, a Thai border town home to many Burmese migrants. We sought to tell the story of their migrations in a way that challenges state-centered narratives of who belongs where. Throughout the day, I listened as colleagues spoke of arrests and airstrikes, of harrowing journeys across the border and all the things they left behind. At night, we played Uno and dominos, laughing and making merry and finding in each other what is still good in life.
Practicing photography in this context forced me to reflect on how we tell stories of migration. Do we bear witness to the violence and injustices that force people to leave their homes and all they know? Or do we focus on the joy, the laughter, the love found in the act of survival?
I have found it untenable to choose a single side of this coin. Exploring Burmese Borderworlds is an effort to find a more nuanced way to depict both the spectacular and mundane in life on the border.
Below is a selection of sample images for this project.
