in Myanmar:

Poet Marc Nair & Artist Nicola Anthony participate in a Mini residency at the historic Secretariat Building in Yangon.

For our residency, we decided to focus on the idea of art intersecting with such an historical and official space. Why is art allowed in? What does that say about the importance of art and the transition of the meaning of the building?

We brought poetry into the building and a number of art interventions: Firstly Marc wrote a poem inspired by the Secretariat, which was hand written and split into discrete lines which were placed in the space. In corners, inside cracks and crevices, and onto the winding staircase. Nicola then created spontaneous artistic interventions by placing gold leaf, inked paper, miniature sculptures, and winding thread into the same space in an around the poetry.

The interventions were left on show indefinitely, some will erode away or be removed, some will remain forever.

“A staircase leads to the defined place for making art” is a photograph series documenting our artistic interventions in the Secretariat Building. It is also an artwork within itself, captured photographically by Marc. The final photo series and poetry was exhibited at Myanm/art Gallery in Yangon during March 2018 as part of our duo exhibition Intersection Yangon. A limited edition of 20 photo boxes were also produced for sale. The outer box was handmade by a local Yangon man in the market square of Yangon.