In Circle, Shwe Wutt Hmon reflects on her sister’s struggle with schizophrenia and how she herself deals with her sister’s mental illness. The project is her immediate response to a difficult situation in which she feels “suffocated.”
She says about her experience: “Instead of seeing a certain counselor for therapeutic intervention, I visited and talked with different mental health professionals to explore and learn more about mental health. In fact, meeting with those professionals, listening to their stories and learning about mental health from them became my own self-reflection, my own coping mechanism, and my journey to therapeutic intervention.”
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Shwe Wutt Hmon is a documentary photographer and one of the founding members of Myanmar-based women photographer group Thuma Collective. Her approach to photography consists of sharing deep and intimate personal stories to connect and examine larger social issues.
For the first time, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Joop Swart Masterclass took place online over a period of four months, and 24 participants and eight masters were selected to make the program more inclusive. The educational experience of the Joop Swart Masterclass is based on an assignment to produce a photo essay around a given theme. This year the theme was ‘Reset’.
