Part of a documentary project titled #Response365—a reiteration of an earlier project—this photograph was one of many posted once a day for a year, in response to the 2021 military coup in Burma. In uploading such provocative images to her Instagram account (@emily_phyo), Phyo facilitates a transformation of her social media platform into a subversive online space for recording on-the-ground developments in real-time, as the military targeted press and journalists. With all the urgency and immediacy evoked in a quick photographic snapshot, Phyo pictures the notorious three-finger salute—a symbol transposed from a dystopian young adult fiction trilogy to become a real and salient sign of resistance in contemporary Burma. Irreverent and stubbornly defiant, Phyo’s act of documentation—which has continuously fixated on the human body, often the artist’s own—makes visible ongoing realities of political protest, survival and perseverance, while bearing witness to the imbrication of human lives in a landscape of political turmoil and repression. Below is Phyo’s account of the day the photograph was taken.

It was captured on 22nd of February, 2021, the day known as 22222 Day. I was hiding in a friend’s apartment in Hledan township, Yangon, with my husband and 7-year-old son due to the risk of getting arrested during night searches. Thousands of people gathered at Hledan junction on that day. It was like a sea of people. There was a sense of unity that I never felt before.

As I was moving among people towards the flyover to take a picture for the day, a thought came into my mind, “What if there was an explosion? I’ll be dead from being run over by the panic crowd.”

When I got to the flyover, I saw a fire truck, armed soldiers and riot police in full gear on the University Avenue side. On the other side, fearless people who want freedom, peace and democracy. I decided to take a picture of people with my three fingers in the foreground. I saw hope in the sea of people.