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oneATELIER is pleased our first in-depth studio visit of 2026 has took place on Thursday, January 8th, at the studio of Myanmar artist Nge Lay, located in the Saint-Michel area of the 6th arrondissement.

Nge Lay’s artistic practice is grounded in conceptual inquiry and critically engages personal narrative alongside Myanmar’s socio-political and historical contexts. Working across performance, installation, sculpture, photography, video, and documentary forms, her recent practice adopts research-based and documentary methodologies focused on migration, displacement, and precarity.

Much of her work reflects her inner perception of contemporary society in Myanmar, drawing on historical contexts and self-referential approaches. She places particular emphasis on the education system in Myanmar, examining how structures of learning intersect with power, control, and social inequality.

Following the military coup d’état in Myanmar in 2021, Nge Lay was forced into exile six months later. This experience of displacement became a critical framework in her recent work. Drawing on field research, interviews, archival materials, and lived testimonies, she examines migrant and exile experiences, transnational labour, mobility, and the politics of belonging.

She recently completed a Master of Fine Arts at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, where her practice engaged with long-term, process-oriented, and community-based approaches. Across contexts, her work positions art as a mode of critical inquiry, alternative historiography, and knowledge production.