Fiona Tan: Rise and Fall

Fiona Tan is internationally regarded for her films, videos and photographs and was highly acclaimed for her participation in the 2009 Venice Biennale’s Dutch Pavilion. Fiona Tan: Rise and Fall features video installations and photographic series produced by this Amsterdam-based artist during the past three years. This major exhibition is an unprecedented opportunity for North American audiences to view Tan’s powerful explorations of identity and belonging in a world increasingly shaped by global culture.
 
The exhibition marks a new trajectory for the artist and documents this important stage in Tan’s career. Although much of Tan’s earlier work focused on the use of found archival images, her recent projects involve the use of actors and location shooting. The works address her long-standing interest in the documentary image, both personal and public, and the role of memory and forgetting in the construction of identity. These ideas are represented in works that range in size and media, from framed photographs and drawings to monitor-scaled digital installations and theatrically-scaled projections.
 
An integral component of the exhibition is a new two-channel film installation commissioned by the Vancouver Art Gallery specifically for this exhibition. The new work, Rise and Fall, was filmed in Niagara Falls, Belgium and the Netherlands, constructing a narrative of isolation, loss and dislocation by using water as an evocative metaphor for the memories of a woman’s life.