design notes
Dutch Pavilion, 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009
For the Dutch pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, Fiona Tan has developed the project Disorient, which consists of three different works: Disorient, Rise and Fall, Provenance. Her audio-visual installation refers to Venice’s pivotal position in the history of geostrategy in the time before the discovery of new routes to Asia diluted the city's power. Her project attempts to bridge the centuries by creating connections with both contemporary day-to-day reality and with the symbolic past that every visitor to Venice wants to grasp.
The elaborately designed catalogue (design by Gabriele Franziska Götz) also presents other recent works by Tan. Fiona Tan's (*1966 in Indonesia) installations and films are the result of her ongoing investigation into representation and the role of images and portraits in contemporary culture. Her works were shown at many international venues: Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum; Istanbul Biennial; ICP Triennial, New York; Documenta 11, Kassel; the 49th Venice Biennale. Tan was shortlisted for the first Artes Mundi Prize in 2003 and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2007.