On February 1st, 2021, Myanmar experienced its third coup in just under six decades. After the country’s largest opposition party to the military government, the National League for Democracy, won 930 of 1117 seats in the parliament, the highest number of seats ever achieved by the political party, the country’s leading General, Min Aung Hlaing, sent in his troops. In pre-dawn raids, the military fanned out across the country, rounding up the newly elected parliamentarians a day before they were to take their seats. After weeks of countrywide demonstrations and general strikes, civilians began to travel to border regions in search of military training from the ethnic armed organizations fighting the government for over seven decades. What was born out of this mass exodus is now known as the People’s Defence Force, a grassroots conglomerate of people’s militias tied together to oust the military government and reinstall democracy in their country.

The photographer Bryan Dickie and Aung Myat Phone will discuss the recent events in Myanmar and Bryan’s recently published photo book covering Myanmar’s ongoing civil war. The book focuses on civilians who joined together to form an opposition army dubbed the ‘People’s Defence Force’ who are actively fighting an entrenched military regime that forcibly took control of the country in February 2021.