School of Contemporary Art (“SoCA”)

SoCA is an alternative learning program created by renowned artist Aung Myat Htay in 2015. Independently, SoCA provides support to local artists and students who want to further learn about and explore tactical approaches to contemporary artistic practices. As initially envisioned by Htay in 2015, SoCA provides a platform for intellectual exchange and critical dialogue about creative mindsets in collaborative settings alongside the artistic community, especially for youth and aspiring artists of all backgrounds in Myanmar, a nation which has never been afforded a dedicated contemporary (or even modern) arts museum. Although there are government-run and controlled cultural museums throughout the nation, they are currently all used to reiterate state-espoused propaganda. Thus, Htay sees his artistic activism (through initiatives like SoCA) as a means to dismantle ideas of art as mere commodities or tools of propagandizing.

Run by self-funded artists (and sometimes in collaboration with galleries and art spaces), SoCA has done 4 regular online programs and artist talks as of early 2025. These programs include art workshops and exhibitions of many varrieites. In these workshops, SoCA invites and highlights international artists, mostly those that work with cross-media formats or come from multidisciplinary backgrounds. Currently, SoCA is active primarily on social media and regularly shares a wide range of approaches and new media art with the public.

SoCA exists at the intersection between local and international art scenes, and thus initiates the knowledge sharing process with our virtual platforms for sharing multimedia art. The initiative’s goal is to build up the ethos of the artist community in Yangon into a developed, fulfilling new culture of radical artistic freedom against a backdrop of the currently authortarian and corrupt government of Myanmar. SoCA’s new project, “The Documentation project of Myanmar contemporary Art” (Vol 3) is currently ongoing. It was granted a public exhibition for NYC’s Goethe Institute’s “Re-connect” program in 2021.