Min Thein Sung creates playful and personal works that draw on daily life in Myanmar. His ‘Another Realm’ series, by focusing on the simple handmade toys that people created as copies of foreign toys seen on TV and in books, references the years that Myanmar was restricted from international trade and commercial mass-production. He recreates these toys as soft sculptures in linen, with giant horses, elephants, tanks and guns that hang like makeshift puppets, or smaller objects fashioned out of the local handmade shan paper.

His work for APT8 ‘Another Realm (horses)’ 2015 is a large, multi-headed horse sculpture displayed against a wallpaper of comic book pages. ‘Another realm’ is symbolic of the slippage that occurs between image and representation when a community is isolated from the world, but also celebrates a spirit of creativity, imagination and adaptability.

‘The 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT8) / Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art / 21 November 2015 – 10 April 2016
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