Rapids, 2010
photographic colour print on archival paper
edition of 50
59.4 x 42.0 cm
signed and numbered
This edition was produced by Fiona Tan in conjunction with her solo exhibition Fiona Tan: Rise and Fall at the Vancouver Art Gallery, May 8 – September 6, 2010, Tan’s first major exhibition in Canada.
Starting with her film A Lapse of Memory, Tan has been creating photographic series that are connected to her film and video productions but also stand on their own as independent works. Rapids is a photograph that was produced in conjunction with Tan’s two-screen installation, Rise and Fall, which she filmed in Niagara Falls, Belgium and the Netherlands. In Rise and Fall, Tan constructs a narrative of isolation, loss and dislocation by using water as an evocative metaphor for time and for memories of a woman’s life. She intersperses images of an older and younger woman — depicting a story of two lives while suggesting they may be the same person — with images of moving bodies of water. The viewer is shown glimpses of intimate moments – bathing, caresses of a lover, routine make-up application – that both unite and divide these two iterations of a woman separated by time. Rapids similarly juxtaposes two images of moving water, suggesting the passing of time and a separation or dislocation. This image was taken on location at Niagara Falls during the filming of Rise and Fall.
Fiona Tan was born in 1966 in Indonesia. She studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunst in Amsterdam, where she now lives and works. She has been exhibiting in private and public galleries and museums since the early 1990s. Most recently, Tan was selected as the Dutch representative at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009.) Recent solo exhibitions of her work have been presented at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (2010); Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2008); Pinakotek der Moderne, Munich, (2007—2008); Lunds Konsthall (2007); Wako Works of Art, Tokyo (2007); and Royal Institute for British Architects, London (2007), and her work is included in museum collections in North America, Europe and Asia. She has participated in Documenta XI, along with biennales in Sydney, Istanbul, Berlin, Venice, Shanghai, Johannesburg and Sweden. Notable recent group exhibitions include Rethink, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center (2009-2010); XXst Century, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague (2009); The Tropics: Views from the Middle of the Globe, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2009); and Self and Other: Portraits from Asia and Europe, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka travelled to National Museum of Art, Osaka, Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Museum of Modern Art, Hayama, and Prefectural Museum of Cultural History, Kanagawa (2008-2009.)