Melissa Carlson examines the development of Burmese modern art and national identity in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries under the constellation of authoritarianism, isolationism, and censorship. As a Fellow in the 2019-2020 program Modern Art Histories of South and Southeast Asia (MAHASSA), funded by the Getty Foundation, she presented on innovative forms of artist collectives and biennales as part of the public programming of the 2020 Dhaka Art Summit in Bangladesh. Publications include a chapter in the edited volume Ambitious Alignments: New Art Histories of Southeast Asia (National Gallery of Singapore, 2018) and the peer-reviewed Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia (2016). Curatorial projects include Burma by Proxy: Art at the Dawn of Democracy, an exhibition of painting in advance of the Myanmar 2015 general election, and Banned in Burma: Painting Under Censorship, an exhibition of censored works from Myanmar.
