Hopeful Defiance: 5 Years of Myanmar’s Revolution

The ALab hosted "Hopeful Defiance: 5 Years of Myanmar’s Revolution" from February 2 to 27, 2026. The ALab is grateful for the support of partners at Purdue and collaborators in Myanmar, including A New Burma. The exhibition featured a fundraiser with stickers, cards, posters, and t-shirts from the Golden Land Solidarity Collective.

The exhibition statement is follows:

Five years ago, on February 1, 2021, a violent coup by Myanmar’s military brought an end to the country’s democratic journey. Myanmar’s “Spring Revolution,” a movement created and sustained by people in Myanmar and in the diaspora, has stood as a defiant and resilient force, rejecting the oppression of the military regime.

This exhibition is the result of a collaboration between artists and activists in Myanmar and in exile, and each artwork—photograph, poetry, digital illustration, sound, and video art—lends its weight to a collective expression of the lived realities of a people refusing to be silenced. At a time when democracy around the world is under threat, this exhibition explores the dualities of five years of resistance: the bleak darkness of state violence and the rays of revolutionary hope for a better future.