In light of the on-going pandemic and the current political situation, it is impossible to conduct international student projects in Bagan for the time being. Therefore, in 2021 Studio Bagan was held as a 4-week online “winter school”. For this, the focus shifted away from the monumental site of Bagan. The students were instead asked to explore their own agency in the process of heritage-making. They applied a feminist lens to the built environment by taking a phenomenological experiential approach and employing various self- empowering mapping techniques to develop unique heritage narratives for their grandmothers’ houses. Methods for this exploration included drawing, mapping, textual description, video and photography.

Despite this digital alternative that allowed the students to gain an in-depth understanding of heritage as an active design process, it is hoped that Studio Bagan will be able to work in Bagan and Myanmar again in the future.

The Studio 2021 was held online.

Contributions and Lectures:
- Clara Rellensmann (BTU): Introduction to the summer school: exploring counternarratives
- Luise Rellensmann (BTU): From intentional monuments to heritage communities
- Prof. Dr. Theingi Shwe (YTU): Architectural heritage in Myanmar: An overview
- Katelyn Williams (BTU): Heritage interpretation
- Luise Rellensmann (BTU): Making Heritage
- Jens Casper (BTU): Stumbling Stones, The agency of mapping & The Garage Manifesto
- Nora Wuttke (SOAS University of London): Drawing as a method for ethnographic fieldwork
- Prof. Karen Eisenloffel (BTU): Recognizing and documenting building construction, materials and structures
- Hon.Prof. Miller Stevens (BTU): Mapping urban contexts
- Hon.Prof. Miller Stevens (BTU): Urban heritage and spatial planning
- Jens Casper (BTU): Designing in historic fabric
- Konrad Frommelt (BTU): Evaluating structural damage in masonry
- Prof. Dr. Johanna Blokker (BTU): Heritage and democracy
- Dr. Felix Girke (HTWG Konstanz): How do colonial buildings become ‘heritage’? The struggle over heritage regimes in Yangon
- Moritz Henning (architect and independent researcher): Southeast Asian Modernism: SEAM Encounters / Contested Modernities