Lukas Birk
Lukas Birk is an Austrian photographer, storyteller, and publisher. currently based in Yangoon, Myanmar. His multi-disciplinary projects have been turned into films, chronicles, books, and exhibitions. A large part of Lukas’ work deals with archival material. Through his is work on the Myanmar Photo Archive Lukas re-interprets the story of Myanmar through collected photographs taken over the last century. These narratives tackle recorded history by creating alternate storylines and fictional elements, alongside commonly accepted facts. Brian Arnold speaks Lukas about his work across Asia and the significance of the book and publishing in his practice.
What was your first experience in Southeast Asia? And what’s kept you going back?
I have been working in Southeast Asia since 2002. First as a photographer for various magazines, and later as researcher. I was based for 5 years in Beijing and would travel regularly to Southeast Asia. In 2011 I started an artist in residency program in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. From then on, I was at least 4 months per year in the region. Each place with very different types of projects. Indonesia was more setting up an infrastructure for artists, in Thailand business type work, in Myanmar developing research projects, and so on. My regional interested certainly grew over the years while understanding more of the historic connections, disconnections and artistic movements.
You’ve worked with artist communities and archives in Central Java and Yangon. Can you offer a brief comparison of these experiences and how they’ve manifest in your own creative practice?
My background is really in photography. I owned a photo studio, created art works to be shown in galleries, etc. Over the years I slipped more into a research practice, and starting studying photographic archives. This was in part the result of influence by my colleague Sean Foley working in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it evolved to influence more of my work. In Indonesia I tried to create an open space for Artists from Europe coming to Southeast Asia, connecting them with the local art scene and making them aware of the incredible wealth of art in the region. My colleague Karel Dudesek, with whom I set up SewonArtSpace (the residency program in Yogyakarta), and I liked to think we truly internationalize artists from Europe, all of whom didn’t have a clue what kind of amazing things are happening in the region before our program. Java is especially interesting, with such a deeply rooted history in the arts that permeates into everyday rituals and social practices.
In Yangon I set up something very different. I started to research the history of local photography in 2013 and have since collected more than 20.000 images of Myanmar photographers from the 1910s till about 1995. The Myanmar Photo Archive, as I titled my project, has since been displaying images and stories around Myanmar that have never been shown. As there are no image archives publicly available it is really incredible to see how people response to first time exposure of their own visual history. It’s a real privilege and has taught me a great deal. I also set up a small publishing endeavor in Yangon. As of today, we’ve published eight different books in English and Burmese, all with primary distribution in Myanmar.
Books are an important part of your creative outlet. What is it about this form?
The book certainly has always been important to me. My father had an enormous photo book collection and I guess that had some influence on me. Over the years I have turned many projects into books that have either been self-published or developed by other publishers. Since initiating the Myanmar Photo Archive publishing project I have also started to print photo books by other authors.
The book is a format that everyone understands. It's easy to transport and can contain worlds within it. I not only like books to summarize projects but use the book as a starting point, as a foundation of sorts. This approach has helped me tremendously in understanding my work in Myanmar.
How did Fraglich come about?
I printed the first zines under the Fraglich label in 2005. Fraglich is a German word, and translates as questionable. I chose this name as I wasn’t quite sure if the zines were worth printing. I liked the name, and decided to keep it when I started to print books with more historic intent or content. I don’t really believe in linear history telling and believe it is important to constantly question how we present and interpret history. Of the years Fraglich grew, and currently I am publishing about five different titles each year.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the Myanmar Photo Archive?
The Myanmar Photo Archive started in 2013. I was curious to see if there were any public visual archives in Myanmar. After some research I found that this was not the case. I started gathering photographic materials and interviewed a lot of different photographers. After a couple of year, I accumulated a fair number of images, was slowly developing a greater context for understanding them. In 2017 I started to exhibit the materials locally and in 2018, with help from the Goethe Institute, I published my first history book on local Burmese photography after the colonial period. From there it just continued, and now every year we are finishing about three books and try to organize an exhibition in Yangon or another city. We also just finalized the first step for our online archive with over 15,000 images digitized,
You’re from Austria and yet attended the Rhode Island School of Design in the United States? Can you tell us a little about your own education in the arts?
Well, I am actually a high school drop-out. I started to work as a full-time radio host when I was 17. Later I spent about a year of traveling and working as photographer in South and Southeast Asia. When I turned 21, I decided to study art and photography in London. After finishing my B.A., I moved to China. Having worked with archives for a while I was really keen to learn more about printing techniques and various ways to bring the image archives alive differently. I applied for a Fulbright scholarship and studied Printmaking at RISD for two years, which certainly helped to rethinking my publishing and edition making process.
What are you working on now?
The Myanmar Photo Archive takes quite a bit of my time and I am preparing two new books. The last book, BOX CAMERA NOW, looks at the use box cameras around the world, a long-standing passion of mine, is still fresh. I am finishing a new book with images from the Cultural Revolution in Chongqing soon. So, there is quite a bit in the pipe. 2021 will certainly be another book year for me!