The Artistry of Documentation: Interview with Minzayar Oo

Can you introduce the works that you’re showing at the exhibition “Documenting Myanmar” at Hong Kong’s Charbon Art Space?

What I’m showing is a very small selection of works. One is about the jade mining industry in Myanmar, a project that I’ve been working on for a few years, since 2013. It’s the largest part of my portfolio. I made six or seven trips to the mines. It’s not a story that’s easy to access. There’s a few pictures from my trip to Bangladesh when I was assigned by National Geographic magazine to cover the refugee crisis there. There’s one picture of Aung San Suu Kyi that I took in 2012. This picture is a standalone in this collection, but it’s still very important to me. The first day of my professional career, when I started working as a photographer for the news agency Reuters, was also the day that Aung got herself a seat in parliament for the first time.

How did you come to cover jade mining in Myanmar?

The jade mine is located in a town called Hpakant in Kachin in the north. In Myanmar, there are some places that the government restricts foreigners from going—that includes foreign journalists. This jade mining area is one of those places. Nationals like us can go there, though it’s still under government control. It’s an area where there’s a lot of conflict happening—drug trading, fighting. Even though Burmese people know this place exists, it’s considered a dangerous place. In 2013, I managed to go there for the first time on a short assignment trip for Reuters. I made contact with the local community leaders there who were willing to help me out. They were really happy to see a journalist working for international media for the first time in a very long time. I spent one day on that trip. The Reuters story was published a few months after I came back. It was the first time that an international media outlet ran a report on the area. I decided that this is something I should work on for a longer time. I wanted to go back for a project of my own.

What made you decide to continue photographing the mines, even after the Reuters assignment was completed? 

When I first arrived there, I saw something that I had never come across before in my life—huge mountains and slopes looking almost like a lunar landscape, which are actually rubble dumped by mining companies. I saw all these people appearing very small compared to the landscape, working in very dangerous conditions. That blew me away. I also realized how things are there—how drugs are easily admitted, how one handful of stones can be valued up to hundreds or thousands of dollars. I was there for only one day, but all these things stayed in my mind and made me want to go back. 

What’s your usual approach to taking photos?

The mining story was the first time I worked on a story for an extended period of time, making repeated trips. The main priority for me was telling the story in the way that it deserves best. I wanted to show all the different aspects of the mining. It’s quite a large story, considering how it’s also directly linked to long ongoing civil conflict in Myanmar in the north. [Getting to preside over the land containing the jade mines is part of the reason why the Burmese military and ethnic Kachin guerrillas, who are seeking self-rule, are at war.] In the end, you don’t get to show a whole bunch of pictures. It comes down to a very small selection. The visual aesthetics have to be strong enough to represent each issue that I want to highlight. I wanted to show one picture about how the work is dangerous, one about drug politics, one about the deaths of minors, one very emotional, touching picture. Every time, I try to capture the strongest possible moments.

What about your approach to capturing the shot itself?

I don’t just snap and walk away. When I see a scene that has the potential to become a very good picture, or a scene that represents one of the major issues in the story, I like to spend a long time just for one shot. I spend an hour or even more. I shoot a few frames, stop, talk a bit, and keep shooting until I feel like I’ve spent enough time to get one picture. But very often I don’t have enough time. I end up spending a long time on one scene and have to remind myself that I have to go to another scene before it’s too late.

The stories you cover often have a political or social angle. How do you balance your perspective on these issues with an objective narrative?

As a photojournalist or documentary photographer myself, I don’t like to try and communicate a political message or agenda. What I really want to do when I go to a place and meet a community of people is try to talk to them and gather a sense of what is going on. Then I try to put that in my pictures. My pictures’ message is not about me, but about these people and what they go through. I just try to capture that. 

You also mentioned that the areas you visit are dangerous. Have you ever had to worry about personal safety? 

With these sensitive stories, there’s always either physical or political danger. The first time I went to a drug den in the jade mines, it was up on a hill. I walked up with the help of a local community leader and saw one or two guys with machetes standing guard. There were dozens if not a hundred drug addicts shooting up. I saw a lot of needles on the ground. That was very shocking! There’s also the danger of landslides because of the steep slopes of the mountain. I try to avoid these by taking the long way around. And there’s always the risk of disappointing the local authorities or ethnic armed groups, so you just have to try to be as neutral as possible. But there are also very enjoyable moments, such as making new friends or seeing unexpected, positive things from people.

You’re a photojournalist, but the show at Charbon Art Space is angled as an art exhibition. Do you think your work also falls under the category of “art”? 

I consider my work to be documentary photography or journalism, but these days when you consider visual languages and aesthetics, the line between documentary photography and art is becoming narrower. That said, to make art is not my priority. I’m just using art to tell the story of the people that I meet. For me, art is just a tool to communicate and to convey the story that I want to tell.

What are some of the changes you’ve seen in the photography scene in Myanmar over the years? 

Before 2010, being a photographer—not a landscape or commercial photographer, but a street or documentary photographer, or a photojournalist—was kind of impossible. It was difficult to walk out on the street with your camera, taking snaps of daily life, because it was such a difficult time for press freedom. Only after 2010, when there was political transition, the crises of the civilian government, and Aung San Suu Kyi being freed from house arrest, that there came all these new photojournalists. I was one among them.

Nowadays, we already have a few new, young photojournalists working in local newspapers and for international media. There’s also a really big street photography community. If you check out the network Featured Collectives, you’ll see Myanmar street photography there. Some of these photographers aren’t necessarily working as professionals, but they’re still very serious. A friend of mine works as an IT engineer, but he’s been shooting elephants for three to four years. He’s got all kinds of different stories about wild elephants in Myanmar. The photography scene is developing, even though we still don’t have a proper institution of photography or journalism, and technique-wise, people still rely on workshops or looking things up on the internet.

How did you first become interested in photography? 

I bought my camera to take landscape photos of Yangon, but after attending a workshop, being exposed to a serious kind of photography, and finding the power of telling stories with photos, I became very curious to try more. In 2012, there was the by-election in the country where Aung would be a candidate for the first time. She was going to go to all these different places across the country to meet people. A couple of friends and I thought, “this will be history, we should follow this with our cameras and document it.” It was a historic time because people hadn’t seen or met Aung for a very long time. It was like a reunion. Witnessing that was very special. After that, at the end of the by-election campaigns, I got the chance to work with Reuters as a freelancer.

These days, I work with a lot with international NGOs and editorial magazines. I’ve been working for the past years mostly in Myanmar, but I’m also slowly starting to work within the region on short assignments for NGOs or newspapers. I hope to cover a bit more regionally, but the most interesting stories for me are still within Myanmar.

Are there any photographers who are inspiring to you? 

I like photographers with a very strong commitment to a particular story or project, like Ko Myo, who I mentioned. His work has always been on elephants. I think you’ll see his images in the upcoming Yangon Photo Festival. My first inspiration that I remember was war photographer James Nachtwey, who I came across while watching a documentary film, of which he was the subject. He’s a legendary photographer who mostly shoots conflicts but also daily life stories. When I was going to shoot the jade mines, I also looked at Sebastião Salgado’s famous pictures of gold mines in Brazil.

Minzayar Oo’s works are on view at the group exhibition “Documenting Myanmar” at Charbon Art Space, Hong Kong, until March 24, 2018.

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