“Myanmar Peace Industrial Complex, Map III” by Sawangwongse Yawnghwe is a monumental diagram that seeks to address the Myanmar peace process – the nation-led discussions aimed at relieving the internal armed conflicts between various ethnic groups that have been simmering in the country since before its independence from Britain in 1948. In this work, the artist adopts the visual language of diagrams rampantly used in reports produced by foreign peacemakers since the “transition” of 2011. Connected by red or black lines are balloons of ethnic armed organisations (EAOs), government structures, foreign actors, and at the heart of it all, the Tatmadaw: Myanmar’s Armed Forces that has dominated Burmese politics in post-colonial Myanmar.While the work appears to plot the network of resources and financial flows among various actors involved with peace building within Myanmar – with the impression of locating a solution via such investigative methodology – this approach to understanding the peace process is ultimately futile. The labyrinthian contours and entanglement of lines – should one choose to follow them – don’t appear to lead to anything conclusive. The uniformity of boxes and texts offer no indication of the significance of any particular actor or issue either; it is as if they are stations on a subway to be navigated, and peace is a stop one might never find. The map is thus a satirical take on the peace process, suggesting the impossibility of understanding this knotted conglomeration of domestic and international entities.
