Brisbane | Yangon a City to Rescue | exhibition

Brisbane Powerhouse presents Yangon (Rangoon) A City to Rescue. The exhibition features a comprehensive suite of awe-inspiring images of Yangon’s colonial buildings. Senator Bob Carr, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, will give an opening address on 22 August and the exhibition runs till 15 September.

Photographers Jacques Maudy and Jimi Casaccia travelled to Yangon in 2012 to document the city’s colonial buildings on film, in some cases sweet-talking guards and public officials to allow them access. The pair photographed 100 structures to prepare a set of dramatic images for a local landmark heritage conference. The exhibition includes images of the Secretariat building; the first images in 60 years since the building was sealed off to civilian access in 1947 after the assassination of Aung San, the father of Nobel Peace Price winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The photographers used filters and other effects in Photoshop to make the shots more visually arresting so officials would see the architectural treasures in a new way. The pair’s work may now help to galvanise a movement to save Yangon’s old buildings.

In June 2012. Two photographers, Jacques Maudy & Jimi Casaccia volunteered to document the historical building of Yangon. The result is a stunning body of photographs and a 60 pages hard cover photo book.

Twenty one photographs selected among the 80+ of the book "Yangon a City to Rescue" will be displayed on the walls of the Brisbane Powerhouse from the 22 August until the 15th of September 2013.