YANGON, Burma – “If you break your hand, the plaster helps getting it fit and strong again. Society was broken and political prisoners are plasters that help society heal.”

While political prisoners are often some of the most grossly disregarded members of society, Burmese artist U Htein Lin sees them as indispensable.  It is this vision that Mr. Htein Lin, known as the “Storyteller of Yangon” honors in his art.

Htain Lin took part in student protests for democracy in Burma in 1988, for which he spent six years in prison from 1998-2004. He is pictured here in a performance piece, “Capturing The Sea” (Vicky Bowman.)

It is not surprising that Htain Lin lends his talents to telling the stories of political prisoners, as he was one himself.  After a wave of pro-democracy protests hit Burma’s military dictatorship in 1988, he joined the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, a paramilitary group which sought to destabilize the state.

This shift from protestor to guerrilla fighter was not at all uncommon during that particular time under Burma’s junta.

“Before the protest I was a law student and became one of the student leaders in my region,” Htein Lin remembered in an interview with Asian Correspondent.  “After the coup, most of the young people believed they should fight against the government and armed struggle was very popular.”

As far as the conditions of the guerrilla warfare were concerned, Htain Lin described the “disaster” of near-constant running mixed with unforgiving weather in the southeast Asian nation.

U Htain Lin has a firsthand account of Burma’s political prisons, and carries that witness into his art (Martin Lesanto Smith.)

Though he gave up the gun not long after taking in up, in 1998 Burmese authorities found Htain Lin name on a list of protestors addressed in a letter from ten years earlier and sentenced him to six years in prison out of fears that more demonstrations might arise in the movement’s tenth anniversary.

The author of the letter was sentenced to 42 years.

Htain Lin spent the majority of the next six years in Insein Prison, Burma’s dictatorship’s main facility for its political opponents.  There, devoid of reading materials, painting became his solace.

On his website, the artist describes painting with his fingers and using his white prison uniforms as canvasses.  Htein Lin also used cigarette lighters and syringes to apply the vibrant colors for which his work is now known.

Soapbars were carved to represent the positions into which political prisoners were forced by their captors (Pichele Penna / Asian Correspondent.)

Cloth, soap, and whatever media he could find became the subject of Htein Lin’s craft, and it is estimated that the artist smuggled out some 300 works while he was in prison.

Once he was released, the artist began to teach Buddhist meditation classes to prisoners, to teach them the techniques he used while behind bars.

This work with prisoners from the outside developed in Htein Lin an understanding of their potential for large-scale healing of national trauma.  It is in this context that the Burmese artist began to craft his most ambitious work, a collection of plaster casts of the hands of prisoners of conscience.

Htain Lin expects to have over 1,000 sets of hands featured in his project “The Storyteller,” pictured here at the Goethe Institut in Munich, Germany (Michele Penna / Asian Correspondent.)

The former prisoner explains why the casts are a symbol of hope beautifully and concisely.

“Like plaster, political prisoners have corrected the system that was broken…” he says on his website.  “I ask them what they think of prison, what it was like for them and how they managed to get through the dark days while I am the making copy of the hand and I write it on paper to document it.”

Htain Lin creates the casts by first binding the subject’s hands, in order to add an element of trust into the work.  As he carefully layers them with plaster the artist softly speaks, questioning the subject as to their personal story.

Htein Lin joyfully creates a plaster hand model, an intense and personal symbol for the healing for which his society has such great need (Facebook.)

At exhibitions, each set of hands is accompanied with the biography of its model as prepared by Htain Lin, who says about his project that “each hand has its own story.”

Htein Lin hopes that his “Storyteller” pieces will serve a purpose not unlike a museum or memorial, in that they each provide an opportunity for remembrance of a trying, difficult time.

“In Europe, there are museums dedicated to remembering mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust and the Killing Fields Museum in Cambodia,” Htein Lin said observing Burma’s severe lack of such a memorial.

“A visit to the museum makes us feel as if we are living in its period. But there is no such museum to record the past history in Myanmar [Burma].”

Htain Lin concluded with impressive foresight.  “Even if our descendants don’t have feelings about the hands,” he said, “they will make them remember the period we were struggling through together.”