Mingalaba: A Journey Through the Myanmar Photo Archive invites audiences to engage with Myanmar through a vast, visual archive.

Mingalaba is a playful experiment that brings old images to new audiences. It presents the archive not as a dusty, forgotten storage space but as an active space for exploration. Audiences are invited to journey through Peninsula Shopping Centre, Excelsior Shopping Centre, and Peninsula Plaza, where they will encounter different collections of images from the Myanmar Photo Archive (MPA) embedded in the everyday spaces often frequented by the local Burmese community and photographers alike. Each intervention introduces Myanmar—its diverse cultural activities, histories, and multi-ethnic environments—to audiences through the eyes of many different photographers.

Opening up archives and bringing images that preserve significant moments from the past–whether personal or political, quotidian or historical–to audiences in real life is significant as access to the past is not always granted. This is the case in Myanmar, where archives, mainly visual archives, are not publicly accessible. The MPA is a rare exception. It is the largest visual archive of Myanmar, containing more than 40,000 photographs, negatives, and paraphernalia that illustrate the country’s visual culture. These materials are accessible to audiences online (through the MPA’s website) and offline through exhibitions and programmes such as Mingalaba.

The archive was founded by Lukas Birk and is currently run with his team, May Hia Myat Thu, Rita Khin and Khun Kyi in Myanmar. The archive is supported by the Goethe Institut Myanmar and has initiated commissions and education programmes for Myanmar citizens to engage with and rethink these archival materials.

Mingalaba is curated by Kirti Upadhyaya [SG].

↘ Guided Tour with curator Kirti Upadhyaya & founder of Myanmar Photo Archive, Lukas Birk

#1: 20th Oct (Sun), 10.30am—11.30am
#2: 26th Oct (Sat), 11.30am—12.30pm

Register Here

Participating Venues:

Peninsula Shopping Centre

• Riceball Photography (#01-04 & #01-28)
  Opens 10.30am—7.15pm daily
• The Camera Workshop (#01-06)
  Opens 12pm—7pm daily
• Ruby Ye Photo (#B1-20)
  Opens 1pm—6pm daily, except for Sundays
• Mandalay Style BBQ (#B1-29)
  Opens 11am—10pm daily

Peninsula Plaza

• Mandalay Style Restaurant (#B1-01)
  Opens 11am—10pm daily

Excelsior Shopping Centre

• I_S_L_A_N_D_S_ (#B1-07B)
  Open 10am—10pm daily
  Archive room will open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12pm—8pm
• Thomas D’esthetique (B1 Window display between Peninsula Shopping Centre & Peninsula Plaza)
  Opens 10am—10pm daily