Project Statement: The desire and craving for the concept of “Gold” has been one of the most popular and abundant trends in Myanmar society. For example, we can find the usage of term “Gold” in places such as in the name of authority general who had abused the country over the past twenty years with military dictatorship, as also in the names of defining the land and cities such as Golden Land, Golden Myanmar, Golden PaLaung, Golden Ka Yin, Golden Yangon, Golden Mandalay, etc. However, the value and characteristics of Gold has been very mistreated in a way that the country is occupied by famous temples and pagodas that were built using a tremendous amount of money, the most precious Gold and jewelries while having huge defects in nationwide developments such as the big gap between living classes of people, rising poverty, corrupted economy, quality of education and general ergonomics standards compared with developed countries.
Regardless of Popular propagandas and manipulation from news media channels stating the good deeds of authority generals such as donating money and building pagodas on everyday news in the morning, afternoon and at night for many years, we can see many people begging for money near the sites of temples and pagodas everywhere. Because of the Huge gap of living classes, it’s undeniable that the ordinary people living in the country are facing numerous socio-economic problems while families of military generals and crony people who worship them are having a great life. Even though the propaganda “The Golden Land” was defined as something to be proud of by popular news media, the ordinary lives of citizens and people actually living in the country as I, a living citizen, witnessed are “NOT GOLDEN“
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Artist Bio
Mann Pyae Phyo Aung (aka Gu Gu) 27.
My native town is Lashio which is the capital & military base of Northern Shanstate, Myanmar. I am an amateur photographer. I started to shoot photography at 2014. I like to shoot documentary, street, landscape and conceptual photography. I’m still studying at Lashio University and now at 3rd years History. I’m the alumni of iPACE(Institute for Political and Civic Engagement). Before joining Yangon Film School (YFS), I spent my time by volunteering at many CSOs dealing with youth cases and about natural resources. I have completed a number of YFS courses and is one of the co-creators of a YFS true fiction Easy Money. ‘Lashio Ambulance’ is my second documentary as a director and got Jade award of Goethe-Institut Myanmar.Before these, I had an experience of shooting photo essay with YPF (Yangon Photo Festival) and also made my own photo book during Lukas Birk 1st photo book workshop with YPF.