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Passing
— slipping between the boundaries unnoticed
1995, three-screen video work
'Passing' explores the representation
of cultures, contrasting the fixed and constructed nature of these
representations with the non-linear, non-narrative elements of analogue
video and sound. In particular, the focus is on definitions of 'Chinese
identity', its historical transformations and the role of the media
in perpetuating particular stereotypes and categories. 'Passing'
has been shown at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne in 1995 and
as part of 'Half the Sky' at the Museum of London in 1997. The work
was funded by the Arts Council of England's Black Arts Film and
Video Fund.
Sites
of Construction
1996, interactive floor installation, gaffer tape, mdf playing pieces,
Victorian racial colour coding: red, white, yellow, brown, black.
'Sites
of Construction' used a multiplicity of media - including video
installation and a variety of different games - to explore the iconography
of the grid and its usage throughout the last two centuries as a
tool for measurement, mapping and the construction of difference.
'Sites of Construction' has been shown at the Towner Art Gallery,
Eastbourne, in 1996 at Acorn Storage Space in London and, more recently,
at CAS in Osaka, Japan.
boatrace
2000, audience participatory installation and event
'boatrace' is
an audience participatory installation and event that forms a continuum
with Tan's other investigations into colour coding and early Victorian
racial classifications. Audiences are invited to make paper boats
from a limited selection of coloured paper (red, yellow, white,
black, and brown). The boats are later 'raced' on a nearby river.
'boatrace' has been shown and performed at CAS, Osaka, Japan and
as part of East International, Norwich 2000. 'boatrace' was supported
by a Year of the Artist residency at Norwich Gallery.
east
2000, installation, with sound (Asian bird song), video, lighting,
Chintz wallpaper, tea chests, tea, lavender essence, P.I.R detectors,
bird cages
'east' initially developed as a site-responsive work which focused
on the Victorian history of Pitshanger Manor and its associated
Victorian 'taste' for Chinoiserie. Referencing a particular wallpaper
design (chintz) found in the drawing-room of the Manor, the work
sought to keep a narrow balance between revealing and obscuring
information, history and meaning: a balance that navigated a path
between beauty and pain; the atmospheric and the real; the poetic
and the literal. 'east' has been exhibited in various formations:
'Chintz', 'From China to Chintz' and 'east', and has been shown
as part of 'Empire & I' at Pitshanger Manor Museum and Gallery,
London in 1999; as part of 'East International', Norwich Gallery,
in 2000 and at Axiom Gallery, Cheltenham in 1999.
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