Fiona Tan. Geography of Time

870 private photographs from Sydney, Tokyo and London, ten pairs of twins on Gotland, and a portrait of Rembrandt’s illegitimate daughter. Using photography and video, Fiona Tan explores the nature of memory and identity.

The exhibition “Fiona Tan. Geography of Time” is the first of our autumn exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Fiona Tan has won international acclaim for her visual idiom and technical perfection. Since the 1990s, her works have been shown worldwide. The works she showed at the Venice Biennale in 2009 attracted particular attention.

Indonesia-Australia-Netherlands
Fiona Tan (b. 1966) is a Dutch artist of Australian-Indonesian parentage. She was born in Indonesia, grew up in Australia and has lived in Amsterdam since moving there to study. With this background she is particularly well placed to explore the tensions that arise between different cultural identities and how these differences can strengthen the forming of identity.

Identity, memory, time, place
What factors contribute to the formation of a person’s identity? To what extent are we defined by the geographical area we grow up in? And what is the significance of the era one is born into? Fiona Tan explores how identity is formed and memories are created. She interweaves past and present to give us a new experience of time and place.

The exhibition presents a total of six works: Nellie (2013), Vox Populi – London, Tokyo and Sydney (2006–12), Diptych (2006–11), Provenance (2008), A Lapse of Memory (2007) and The Changeling (2006).

The exhibition is curated by the National Museum’s Eva Klerck Gange. It is accompanied by a catalogue with texts by Eva Klerck Gange, Jenny Hval, Christophe Gallois, Peter Gorschlüter, Angela Jerardi and Ruth Direktor. The exhibition’s event programme includes seminars, an interview with the artist, and a guided tour with the curator.

The touring exhibition “Fiona Tan. Geography of Time” was initiated by the National Museum. It will be shown first at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo from 25 September 2015 to 31 January 2016, before going on to Mudam Luxembourg in spring 2016, the MMK Museum für moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, and finally the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

For more information:
Eva Amine Wold Engeset, press officer: 469 50 102, eva.engeset@nasjonalmuseet.no