Fiona Tan

Fiona Tan (born 1966 in Pekanbaru, Indonesia)[1] 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.[2][3] Tan currently lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.[4] Fiona Tan was born in 1966 in Pekanbaru, Indonesia, to an Indonesian Chinese father and Australian mother.[5] Tan spent her early childhood in Melbourne, Australia.[5] In 1984 she moved to Europe, where she has resided since. Between 1988 and 1992 Tan studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam.[4][6] Between 1996-1997 she also studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunst.[7][8] On April 30, 2025, the Rijksmuseum announced that Tan would curate their summer exhibition, Fiona Tan: Monomania[9], 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. 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[10] Grand-Hornu, Belgium in 2019. In 2009, she represented The Netherlands at the Venice Biennale with the solo presentation Disorient.[11] 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.[1