In the Fabric of Resistance: Htein Lin’s ‘Escape’ at Ikon Gallery

Cloth, in its quiet ubiquity, wraps the contours of our being – delicate yet resistant, woven with histories both tender and enduring. It is the fabric of necessity, close to the skin, accompanying the rituals of daily life. Yet, in its folds, it carries the weight of privilege – unseen, yet palpable for those whose access to its soft embrace marks a life apart. It expands across continents, draping bodies in silken narratives, only to be reduced to the smallest of stitches when time and circumstance demand. It is both a shield against the world and an intimate gesture, held between those who wear it and those who weave it. In its weave, we find the stories of resilience, of what holds us together, and what leaves us exposed.

How can such a material be seen as both delicate and enduring, both luxury and necessity? What does it mean when something, once – and, for many, still – considered a superfluous addition to culture, becomes necessity? This is the dichotomy that lies at the core of Htein Lin’s work: an intricate, potent reminder of the necessity of art as a means of expression, identity and, above all, survival.

Lin, a Burmese artist whose life has been shaped by successive waves of Myanmar’s military regimes, carries within his work the scars of a history defined by political imprisonment and resistance. Born in 1966, he became a vocal critic of the junta’s oppressive rule, his art quickly evolving into an extension of his activism.⁰¹ In 1998, he was arrested for his involvement in pro-democracy protests and sentenced to seven years behind bars. During this time, his artistic practice underwent a profound transformation: using whatever limited materials available to him, he created intricate artworks – largely paintings – smuggling them out of prison in an act of quiet defiance. A majority of his work during this time became known as his 000235 series (1998–2004) – titled after Lin’s International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) number – a potent, multifaceted record of an emotional and political journey.⁰² Sometimes vibrant, at other times grim and brooding, Lin’s paintings, rendered on any piece of cloth he was able to find, embraced many styles in an attempt to endure his hardships – abstract, whimsical, cryptic, portraiture – in response to the extensive torture he was subjected to while incarcerated.

It is impossible to see Lin’s work as existing in a vacuum, as a sole manifestation of his individual existence and experience. To engage with his work is to acknowledge that artistic creation is always a collective process, his practice being representative and emerging out of shared struggle. ‘Escape’, as a retrospective, unfolds as a narrative still in the making – a living collection that grows and transforms, shaped not just by Lin but by the shared histories of those whose stories he carries. Each piece is an invitation to witness the collective act of survival, a record not only of Lin’s journey but of many voices, each contributing to the fabric of resistance.

As a result, ‘Escape’ makes legible the fact that Lin is defined by so much more than his paintings and individual hardships. His 000235 series is only an extension of his lifelong accomplishments as a multidisciplinary artist, and the exhibition makes it impossible to overlook the protean dimension of his trajectory. Upon entering the exhibition space, visitors are met by A Show of Hands (2013–), an ongoing project in which Lin casts the hands of more than five hundred political prisoners from Myanmar, each piece contributing to a growing memorial to resistance. Alongside these hands, whose appearance is worn, weathered and almost abstracted, sits a card detailing the circumstances of their imprisonment. The array of suspended hands hover between life and death, presence and absence, freedom and captivity, at once delicate and forceful.

While only a small number of the hands were on display at Ikon Gallery, the weight of such a presentation – which Lin describes as both a sculpture and a public performance project – is only beginning. As Lin conceives it, it is a project with no end.⁰³ It also speaks to a conversation that is just starting in certain places far from Myanmar. This conversation that Lin’s work sparks is one that will keep unfolding, as each hand, each story, adds to a growing dialogue that transcends boundaries and time.

Encountering ‘Htein Lin: Escape’ is to witness the way communities reclaim their agency in defining their own history to expose hidden injustices, inequalities and false narratives imposed by dominant powers. It is to recognise that those on the fringes of society carry stories that must be told. This meticulous and deliberate understanding between Htein Lin and Ikon informed the artist’s and the gallery’s collaboration with residents of HMP Grendon in Buckinghamshire. Inspired by the techniques utilised by Lin throughout his incarceration, portraits and other pieces of prison resident are shown in an off-site exhibition throughout May. In addition, having started long before the May exhibition, workshops with HMP Grendon artist-in-residence Simon J. Harris explore instruments and themes connecting prison art in Britain and Myanmar.

Emerging from shared histories of confinement, the art created by the inmates cuts through geographic and cultural boundaries, embodying the primal, unyielding need for expression even in the most suffocating of circumstances. Lin’s conversation, which began in Myanmar, expands through these works, each defying not only the physical confines of their creators but the systems that seek to silence them. It recalls the spirit of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, where the colonised – reduced to silence by oppressive forces – use art as a form of resistance, a reclaiming of their identities and histories.⁰⁴ Though Fanon addresses the colonised, the work of decolonisation, in his thought, extends to any who endure oppression: those whose voices are suppressed, whose bodies are controlled, and whose histories are erased. ​​As in Fanon’s image of the colonised body, Lin’s sculptures suggest that the oppressed are not only broken by violence – they are shaped by it. Their forms are stretched, bent, and redefined in ways that speak of endurance, of the human spirit’s refusal to yield. These pieces speak beyond survival; they are micro revolutions that reshape notions of visibility and voice in spaces designed to erase them. Forged from scarce materials and shaped by hands whose stories have long been erased, each piece becomes a powerful act of reclamation – not only for its creator but for the silenced truths it carries. In this ongoing dialogue, Lin’s work evolves to embrace not only the struggles of the prisoners, as well as their subtle, relentless refusal to be erased. These works are not created for mere admiration; they exist to restore the dignity of expression itself – a dignity that neither confinement nor silence can ever extinguish.

What resonates most deeply in ‘Escape’ is the tension between destruction and survival. This is most powerfully embodied in Lin’s most recent work in the show, Fiery Hell (2024). Fiery Hell not only depicts devastation, but it is above all a visceral reckoning of the brutality of navigating between destruction and endurance, and a stark embodiment of the civil war ravaging Myanmar. Men and women carry children tightly in their arms, while others support the frail bodies of the elderly, their faces twisted in anguish. Each step seems to be driven by struggle to stay alive. Figures half obscured by smoke carry their families and belongings, their silhouettes faintly visible amidst the chaos. The swirling, almost violent brushstrokes mirror the heat of the inferno, capturing a frantic movement as fire threatens to engulf the animals and civilians fleeing military forces setting their community ablaze. The flames that tear through the landscape do not simply burn – they consume with intent, acting as relentless agents of erasure. They aim not only to destroy life, but to annihilate entire histories – physical, cultural, and generational. In their ferocity, they challenge the very essence of existence, threatening to reduce everything to ash. But the fire does not simply ravage. It scars and scorches, and from its wake, figures emerge, carried not by the force of the blaze but by an unspoken will to endure. Fiery Hell resonates with the unflinching brutality of Goya’s The Disasters of War (1810–20), where the violence of conflict is laid bare, and humanity is stripped to its most vulnerable state.⁰⁵ There is no resolution, only the relentless struggle between annihilation and the drive to persist.

Each piece in ‘Escape’ captures this delicate balance, where the marks of destruction – whether in the jagged texture of the plaster or fragile, frayed edges of cloth preserved for over two decades – never merely signify defeat. Instead, they are testaments to endurance. Lin’s work does not turn away from the harshness of oppression; it confronts it with unflinching resolve, revealing how violence and suffering leave deep scars on both body and soul. His work is a thread that resists being tied off – a continuous, open-ended conversation that sparks continuity.

‘Escape’ becomes a collective tapestry – each addition, each new voice, weaving together the past with the present, the individual with the collective, in a dialogue that refuses to end. By its very nature Htein Lin’s ‘Escape’ resists closure. It is not a passive reflection on history, but a living, evolving dialogue that pulses with the tensions between the past and the present, what is visible and what is silenced. Lin’s work does not simply document struggle; it demands reckoning, drawing the viewer into an ongoing narrative. It is not a memorial to resistance, but a dynamic force that continues to shape what is yet to be understood. ‘Escape’ does not conclude with its exhibition; it unfurls, inviting us to partake in the act of resistance and restoration, to carry forward what has begun, and to ensure that the voices long suppressed never fade. Like cloth, its threads woven with the weight of innumerable stories, the exhibition unfolds over time, each new layer deepening the ever-growing tapestry of collective memory. Through this perpetual exchange, the retrospective becomes something more: an ever-living reclamation of history and identity, unfolding without end.