Sampan’s Speaker Series brings together writers, historians, artists and activists to explore the stories that shape Myanmar, India and Bangladesh. These are conversations about people and places, memory and identity – unfolding over drinks, dinner, and good company.

Our previous events included author Abir Mukherjee speaking about the heritage of British and Bengali detective fiction, Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent on her travels in the Naga Hills, Sam Dalrymple on the partitions that made modern Asia, and K.S. Nair exploring the Bangladesh 1971 Liberation War in the context of the Cold War. What connects each talk is a desire to look closer and ask questions.

For our Speaker Series events in Yangon, we offer a certain number of free tickets to Myanmar youth. Let us know if you think you are eligible and would like to attend an event.

Contact us for more information and check below for upcoming events.

Phejin Konyak: “The Last Tattooed Headhunters”

Saturday, 30 May 2026 – Yangon

“It was compulsory for every Konyak individual to have tattoo markings on their body, for a person without a tattoo would not be able to enter the afterlife. The tattoo markings identify an individual’s belonging to a certain age group, a certain clan, certain achievements in their life. It signified the life story of a person.”

Phejin Konyak – author researcher and keeper of her own people’s stories – brings a rare perspective on one of the most visually striking and culturally rich traditions of the Indo-Myanmar borderlands. In her acclaimed book The Konyaks: Last of the Tattooed Headhunters, Phejin combines extensive fieldwork with evocative portraiture to preserve a tattooing heritage that once marked rites of passage, status and belonging among the Konyak Nagas.

Her book brings together the most extensive research and documentation ever conducted on Konyak tattoo art. It preserves this unique and fast-disappearing cultural practice by recording tattoo motifs, their meanings, and the oral traditions that accompany them: folktales, songs and poems. The book won the Silver Award at the London Book Fair in 2018 and was named Illustrated Book of the Year in India in 2019.

In this Speaker Series event in Yangon, Phejin will speak to us about the Konyak Nagas, and why she felt compelled to produce her book.

Please email amy(at)sampantravel.com to RSVP for this event.

“Modern Myanmar Art”

TBC – Yangon

From the pioneering work of Ba Nyan in the early twentieth century to the bold, often subversive practices of contemporary artists, modern Myanmar art tells a story of continuity and rupture. Shaped by colonial encounters, decades of isolation, and periods of intense political pressure, artists in Myanmar have long found ways to adapt, innovate and quietly resist.

This Speaker Series talk explores how painters and sculptors reworked classical techniques, absorbed global influences, and responded to censorship and constraint – creating a visual language that is both deeply local and outward-looking. We will trace key movements and figures, consider the role of art schools and informal networks, and reflect on how artists continue to work today, often in difficult circumstances.

An introduction to a rich but under-explored artistic tradition – and an invitation to look more closely at Myanmar through its art.

Date, location and further details of this event to be confirmed. Please email amy(at)sapantravel.com if you are interested in finding out more.

Annabel Venning: “To War with the Walkers”

TBC – Kolkata

Author Annabel Venning joins the Sampan’s Speaker Series to discuss her acclaimed book To War with the Walkers, a moving account of one family swept up in the vastness of the Second World War. Drawing on letters, diaries and family memory, Annabel follows her grandfather and his five siblings as they serve and live through different theatres of the conflict – from Europe to the Burma Campaign – each confronting the war in their own way.

Of particular interest to Sampan’s guests will be the story of Annabel’s grandfather Walter who fought in General Bill Slim’s Fourteenth Army in Burma, and his brother Peter who was a POW on the infamous Death Railway.

In this session, Annabel reflects on the personal cost of global conflict, the resilience of wartime families and the challenge of piecing together history through intimate, often fragile traces. To War with the Walkers is both a family chronicle and a window onto the lived experience of the 1940s – and this talk promises a powerful exploration of courage, loss and the ties that endure.

The date and location of this Speaker Series session is yet to be confirmed. Please contact us to express your interest.