You never had those yellow slippers,” my mother insists, her certainty making the memory feel like a betrayal. Yet I see them so clearly—the yellow soles, the black braided straps—left behind on the day we moved. I was four, and that image has stayed with me ever since. But did I ever own those slippers? This memory clings uneasily to me, leaving me to question which version of the past truly belongs to me. This seemingly trivial memory mirrors the greater dissonance I would face when I was forced to flee Myanmar after the 2021 military coup.
The dissonance between memory and reality reflects the trauma of displacement. In Germany, the rise of right-wing movements disrupts any fragile sense of safety, retraumatizing me. Every border crossed, every moment of waiting, forces me to relive the fear and uncertainty I fled in Myanmar. The instability I escaped has followed me here, where promises of safety remain broken, and the cycle of exile continues.
“When Spring Never Comes” explores how memory and constant uncertainty intertwine, where the past and present constantly merge and reshape each other. It delves into the emotional toll of displacement, alienation, and the struggle to reconcile who we are becoming. The work reflects the tension between remembering and forgetting, absence and reconstruction.Just like with the images, each story forms a slightly different meaning in every subsequent reading, becoming one of a dozen different truths.
The past, like those yellow slippers, remains both lost and lingering—what we hold onto as we reconcile who we are becoming in a world that has failed us, offering only endless uncertainty and quiet disappointment.
Min Ma Naing, a Myanmar exile artist based in Berlin, began her career as a press photographer before transitioning to a slow contemporary documentary practice. She co-founded Myanmar’s first women photographers’ collective to challenge gender inequality in the industry. Beyond image-making, she uses photobooks as art objects, inviting viewers to engage intimately with her narratives. Drawing from her experiences of exile and diaspora, her recent work intertwines personal history with themes of political upheaval, borders, and displacement. She adapted her temporary pseudonym "Min Ma Naing" to continue working freely after the military coup.