Why we started Myanmar Canvas
A short note on what this project is for, and the kind of story it is trying to keep.
Myanmar reaches most of the world as a headline, and headlines are built to compress. A country of more than fifty million people, a hundred-odd languages, and a history that runs continuously for a thousand years gets flattened into a sentence, usually a bad one.
This project is an attempt to keep the parts that do not compress. A family behind a market stall. A tradition behind a monastery. A story behind a festival, told the way it is told at home — with the digressions left in.
We are starting small and on purpose. One story published when it is ready. Reporting organised by subject rather than by news cycle, so that a piece written this year is still findable, and still true, in ten.
If you have something to contribute — a craft, a route, a job nobody writes about, a festival your street runs — write to us.