Ma Ei: Look at the Calf
Publisher: Art Guide Australia
Having fought against the dehumanising military coup regime in Myanmar in 2021, Ma Ei was forced to leave the country in 2022 for Thailand before seeking refuge in Australia. Before the displacement, she worked as an artist and activist, using art and performance to gather people for protests that resisted killings, drawing local and international attention and doing everything she could to help pivot the situation.
“Art is my weapon against totalitarian violence,” Ma Ei says. Though she is now ‘settled’ in Naarm (Melbourne), her mind is never settled.
In her first solo exhibition in Australia, Pit Yourself Against, at Counihan Gallery, Ma Ei presents a visceral video work Pit Ourselves Against (2025), featuring her own performance of Donna Donna by Joan Baez, with sound produced by her husband Naung Yoe.. Both the original song in Yiddish (1940-41) and Baez’s English version (1960) articulate the dismal condition of a calf being led to slaughter. Ma Ei’s white dress splashed with red paint reminiscent of blood and violence, is starkly contrasted against the seemingly tranquil backdrop of the bush. As she sings in relentless melancholy, she moves sedately, covering her body and dress with white paint so the red beneath can be obscured. The sky is clear, and the sunlight is bright—too bright, as if it was painful on Ma Ei’s sorrowful face. She sings:
“Stop complaining!” said the farmer
“Who told you a calf to be?
Why don’t you have wings to fly with
Like the swallow so proud and free?”
Ma Ei, 'Pit Ourselves Against', 2025, still. Courtesy of the artist.
The freedom of the swallow invoked in the lyrics becomes a cruel irony in this plight: the calf never had a choice to be a calf or a swallow. For the calf, there is no grounded reason for slaughter. Towards the end of the performance, the red paint doesn’t disappear; it bleeds through the white and becomes pink. Burmese people are trapped in this bleak moment: their lives are being taken away monstrously and unjustifiably in the atrocity. But for those of us who live outside the immediate perils, for those of us who can choose to never get close to the abattoir just like the free-flying swallow, are we talking enough about the catastrophe in Myanmar? Would talking enough even help?
Another video performance Onion Piece (2026) is a new work made for this exhibition. Set in Ma Ei’s own kitchen, her work and living space where she describes feeling confined, her tears fall incessantly as she slices piles of onions. Whether the tears come from the sting or from Ma Ei’s burdened heart is elusive. The distinctive sound of chopping establishes a palpable tempo: steady at first, then intense, and finally slowing down, echoing her shifting mental state. Anxiety and distress grow rampant before giving way to exhaustion—drained, a loss of hope.
“It is for my suffering communities in Myanmar and for all suffering communities in the world.” she explains. “And I miss home. But where is my home?” The endless task of onion slicing falls into assonance with the endless accumulation of affliction.
Ma Ei, 'Onion Piece', 2026, still. Courtesy of the artist.
Played on the same loop as other video works via a projector with selected images presented as prints, Where is a Place to Sleep in Peace (2021-25) reveals the defiance Ma Ei held before reaching the disheartened self that is depicted in Onion Piece. Created from 2021, this photographic series unpacks a repertoire of personal and social settings during and after the coup d’état, featuring Ma Ei in sleeping positions facing the audience. For example, she places herself in her neighbourhood where rubbish bins are stacked as makeshift defence walls, and in the jungle where she underwent training as part of a self-organised armed group resisting the coup. The energy in this body of work tragically accentuates the irreversible nature of failed resistance so far, and the long-gone hope that existed before the current, seemingly helpless stage of Ma Ei’s life.
Ma Ei, 'Where is A Place to Sleep in Peace?' 2021-25, still. Courtesy of the artist.
Sharing stories and feelings about humanitarian injustice at one dinner party may not seem to change the world drastically and swiftly, probably nor does writing this article. But what we can have is an open-ended conversation, a contemplation on approaching anew, or an opportunity to infuse a piece of angled perspective into other circles. French philosopher and political activist Simone Weil notes in her mystical essay Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God (1951) that attention can be a barren effort, but real attention emanates desire and a light of hope, allowing what is cherished to become tangible and substantial. Talking about violence and injustice can feel immediately uncongenial, but attention is a wellspring of all other possibilities. It keeps things moving, and sustains the work being done to make a difference.
“At least I want to be seen or heard. I’m doing everything I can, and I will not stop until we find peace.” Attention is what Ma Ei seeks to gather. Look at the calf. Look up what is happening in Myanmar. Talk and listen to your local Burmese communities. “At least I can feel I’m not alone.”
