Laundering Hpone (2023)
Interactive Installation & Performance
Un/Besieged: Microfestival of Human Rights and the Arts, New York

Laundering “Hpone” is an installation exploring the anecdotal superstition around Hpone in Myanmar. Hpone is the belief of a mystic power that only men possess, is unobtainable by women, and is threatened by the mere touch of another gender’s clothes. The concept shaped our traditions and behaviors; painting menstruation as ‘dirty’, keeping women away from sacred places, and guiding the strict rules of domestic laundry.

Through personal memories and myths recollection, Laundering Hpone engages with the recent use of women clothings as a form of political resistance in post-coup Myanmar. It examines the collective effort to redefine and dismantle the patriarchal societal norms and the fragility of masculinity and state power.

Photos by Center for Human Rights and the Arts, Bard College