Fiona Tan

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title: "Fiona Tan" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["20th-century-indonesian-sculptors", "21st-century-indonesian-sculptors", "video-artists", "conceptual-artists", "women-conceptual-artists", "1966-births", "living-people", "dutch-people-of-chinese-descent", "indonesian-emigrants-to-the-netherlands", "indonesian-hokkien-people", "indonesian-people-of-chinese-descent", "21st-century-indonesian-women-sculptors", "20th-century-indonesian-women-sculptors", "van-lanschot-kempen-kunstprijs-winners", "indonesian-poster-artists", "indonesian-lecturers", "indonesian-film-directors", "indonesian-women-film-directors", "indonesian-art-curators", "indonesian-women-curators"] description: "Indonesian visual artist" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Tan" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Indonesian visual artist ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox artist"]

Field	Value
name	Fiona Tan
birth_date	1966
birth_place	Pekanbaru, Indonesia
nationality	Indonesian
field	video art and film installations
alma_mater	Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam
website
::

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Fiona Tan (born 1966 in Pekanbaru, Indonesia) is a visual artist primarily known for her photography, film and video art installations. With her own complex cultural background, Tan's work is known for its skillful craftsmanship and emotional intensity, which often explores the themes of identity, memory, and history. Tan currently lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Early life and education

Fiona Tan was born in 1966 in Pekanbaru, Indonesia, to an Indonesian Chinese father and Australian mother. Tan spent her early childhood in Melbourne, Australia. Between 1996-1997 she also studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunst.

Artistic practice

In 2019, Tan completed a photography/film project titled L'archive des ombres/Shadow Archive during her residency at the Mundaneum, a repository created by Belgian visionary Paul Otlet with the goal of cataloging all human knowledge. An exhibition of the same name was staged at the Musée des Arts Contemporains Grand-Hornu, Belgium in 2019.

In 2009, she represented The Netherlands at the Venice Biennale with the solo presentation Disorient. She has also participated in Documenta 11, the Yokohama Triennale, the Berlin Biennale, São Paulo Biennial and also at the Istanbul Biennial, the Sydney Biennial and Asian Pacific Triennial. Her work is represented in many international public and private collections including the Tate Modern, London, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Schaulager, Basel, the New Museum, New York, and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

She has been guest lecturer at many art institutions including professor at the postgraduate program De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2006–2014) and Kunsthochschule Kassel (2014–15).

In 2003 Tan created a poster, Lift, for Transport for London. In 2016 she directed her debut film, History's Future.[3] Her second feature film Ascent premiered at the 2016 Locarno International Film Festival. During this year she was also the artist in residence at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Tan participated in established international residencies, including IASPIS grant and residency, Stockholm (2003) and DAAD scholarship and residency, Berlin (2001).

On April 30, 2025, the Rijksmuseum announced that Tan would curate their summer exhibition, Fiona Tan: Monomania*,* featuring works from the museum's collection; she is the first contemporary artist invited to curate at the Rijksmuseum. The exhibition will also include a new work by Tan, Janine’s Room, which was commissioned by the museum.

Exhibitions

Tan has had solo exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide including the New Museum, New York, Vancouver Art Gallery, Sackler Galleries, Washington DC, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Switzerland, Akademie der Künsten, Berlin, Kunstverein Hamburg, Konsthal Lund, Landesgalerie Linz, Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montréal, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Solo exhibitions

• Disorient, Dutch Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale (2009)
• Rise and Fall, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2010)
• Rise and Fall, Wako Works of Art, Tokyo (2011)
• Vox Populi London, The Photographers' Gallery, London (2012)
• Inventory, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2013-2014)
• Terminology, Metropolitan Museum for Photography, Tokyo (2014)
• Terminology, National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2014)
• Nellie, Wako Works of Art, Tokyo (2014)
• Options & Futures, Rabo Kunstzone, Utrecht, Netherlands (2014)
• Depot, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2015)
• Ghost Dwellings, Frith Street Gallery Soho Square, London (2015)
• Geography of Time, Norwegian Museum of Contemporary Art (2015-2016)
• Geography of Time, MUDAM, Luxembourg (2016)
• Ascent, Izu Photo Museum, Nagaizumi, Japan (2016)
• Geography of Time, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany (2016-2017)
• Disorient, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Abando, Spain (2016-2017)
• Nellie, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2017)
• Geography of Time, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2017)
• Ascent, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands (2017)
• Time and Memory, Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Spain (2018)
• Elsewhere, Frith Street Gallery, London (2018-2019)
• Archive / Ruins, Peter Freeman, Inc., New York (2020)
• Fiona Tan: Footsteps, Museum of the Moving Image, New York (2024)

Group exhibitions

• Go-Betweens, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2014)
• Paradise Lost, CCA, Singapore (2014)
• FUTURE PRESENT, Schaulager, Laurenz Foundation, Basel, Switzerland (2015)
• NO MAN'S LAND, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, United States (2015)
• Ecce Homo, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2016)

Awards

• ICP Infinity Award for Art, New York (2004)
• Getty Artist-in-Residence Fellowship, Los Angeles (2016)

Publications

References

References

1. (2005). "Exhibitions - Fiona Tan: Correction".
2. (2015). "Fiona Tan: Geography of Time". Koenig Books.
3. "Brief Biography".
4. "Fiona Tan [CV]".
5. Guy Nichols, Matthew. (7 September 2010). "Fiona Tan: Willing Subjects, Resistant Souls". [[Art in America]].
6. (2015). "Fiona Tan : geography of time". Koenig Books.
7. Tan, Fiona. (2010). "Rise and Fall: Fiona Tan". [[Vancouver Art Gallery]].
8. (2015). "Exhibitions - Fiona Tan. Geography of Time".
9. (2019). "Fiona Tan. L’Archive des ombres".
10. (2009). "Works: Disorient".
11. Bownes. (2018). "Poster Girls". [[London Transport Museum]].
12. "Signs of Life - Ascent - Netherlands, Japan - 2016".
13. "Locarno goes Dutch".
14. (2017). "ASCENT: A film by Fiona Tan - Film Screening and Conversation".
15. "Rijksmuseum announces major exhibition Monomania – curated by Indonesia-born Dutch artist Fiona Tan. - Rijksmuseum".
16. "Fiona Tan biography".
17. (2010). "Exhibitions: Fiona Tan - Rise and Fall".
18. (9 September 2011). "Fiona Tan "Rise and Fall" and New Works".
19. Milliard, Coline. (9 November 2012). "Image of a People: Fiona Tan Assembles an Intimate Portrait of London from Old Family Photos". [[Louise Blouin Media.
20. (2013–2014). "Exhibition – Live Cinema/Fiona Tan: Inventory".
21. Tran, John L.. (31 July 2014). "No words can describe Tan's 'Terminology'". [[The Japan Times]].
22. (2014). "Exhibitions - Fiona Tan Terminology".
23. (11 August 2014). "Fiona Tan: Nellie @ Wako Works of Art".
24. (2014). "Fiona Tan: Options & Futures. Rabo Kunstzone".
25. (2015). "Exhibition - Fiona Tan: DEPOT".
26. (2015). "Exhibitions: Fiona Tan - Ghost Dwellings".
27. (14 September 2015). "Oslo: Fiona Tan. Geography of Time". [[National Museum of Norway]].
28. (2016). "Exhibitions: Fiona Tan - Geography of Time".
29. (2016). "Past Exhibitions - Fiona Tan: Ascent".
30. (2016). "Fiona Tan - Geography of Time".
31. (2016). "Exhibitions - Fiona Tan: Disorient". [[Guggenheim Museum Bilbao]].
32. (2017). "Exhibitions - Fiona Tan - Nellie".
33. (2017). "Exhibition - Fiona Tan - Ascent".
34. (2018). "Córdoba - Fiona Tan & Haris Epaminonda. Time and Memory".
35. (2018–2019). "Exhibitions - Fiona Tan: Elsewhere".
36. (2020). "Exhibitions - Fiona Tan - Archive / Ruins".
37. (2024). "Exhibitions, Installation - Fiona Tan: Footsteps".
38. (2014). "Go-Betweens: The World Seen through Children - Participating Artists / Artist Groups".
39. (2014). "Paradise Lost".
40. (2015). "Exhibition – Future Present".
41. (2015). "Exhibition: NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection".
42. (2016). "Past Exhibitions – Ecce Homo: The Human Images in Contemporary Art".
43. (3 April 2004). "2004 Infinity Award: Art - Fiona Tan is our 2004 honoree for Art".
44. (28 June 2016). "Getty Research Institute Announces 2016/2017 Scholars In Residence and Artist In Residence Fiona Tan".

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