The exhibition “Rethink Beato: from Italy to Burma (1832-1909)”, organised by the Italian Embassy in collaboration with the Myanmar Photo Archive, was inaugurated on 30 November in Yangon and will be open to the public until 15 December.
Through works, the exhibition retraces the footsteps of Felice Beato, the Italian-born photographer who immortalised the spirit of Myanmar during his stay in Mandalay from 1887 to 1905. Images he captured in Burma and other countries allow visitors to step back in time and discover his life and legacy.
Thanks to his intuition of drafting complete photo albums of first Japanese and then Burmese “views and types”, which were sent by mail all over the world, Beato fuelled not only the West’s desire for exoticism, but also the desire of the Japanese and Burmese upper classes to be immortalised through photography.
“In presenting Beato’s photographic corpus in Myanmar,” explained Nicolò Tassoni Estense, Head of Mission of the Italian Embassy in Yangon, “we intend to contribute to the overall effort of Myanmar Photo Archive and various other private institutions and citizens to preserve, promote and transmit Memory. This effort is all the more important because the country’s fragmented and troubled history has made it difficult to restore a sense of ownership of its past to the Burmese people. Being able to critically integrate the various passages of history is, in Myanmar as elsewhere, a way to sediment a more solid, conscious and rich identity.” “The exhibition,” continued Tassoni, “is the first step in an effort by the Embassy to collect the stories of Italians in Burma over the centuries, with the aim of witnessing and documenting the often little-known, but particularly significant events for cultural exchanges between Myanmar, Italy and Europe. This project is part of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation’s broader programme to recount and enhance the most significant Italian figures abroad.”
