Tiffany Chung’s work examines conflict, migration, urban progress and transformation in relation to history and cultural memory. It explores the geographical shifts in countries that were traumatized by war, human destruction or natural disaster. Whether Chung’s studies of the growth, decline or disappearance of towns and cities focus on urban development, environmental catastrophe or humanitarian crisis, her ethnographic research and interviews often play into her re-narrations of historical sites.
Chung’s map drawings layer different periods in history of devastated topographies, reflecting the impossibility of accurately creating cartographic representations of most places. Transgressing space and time, these works unveil the connection between imperialist ideology and vision of modernity. Her maps interweave historical and geologic events, spatial and sociopolitical changes with future predictions, revealing cartography as a discipline that draws on the realms of perception and fantasy as much as geography. Often incorporating international treaties with local histories, Chung’s work remaps memories that were denied in official records. Her mixed-media installations excavate layers of history, re-write chronicles of places, and create interventions into the spatial narratives produced through statecraft.
Tiffany Chung holds an MFA from University of California, Santa Barbara (2000) and a BFA from California State University, Long Beach (1998). She was awarded the Sharjah Biennial Artist Prize in 2013. Selected museum exhibitions and biennials include: My Voice Would Reach You, Rice University & Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA (2014); Residual: Disrupted Choreographies, Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nimes, France (2014); THREADS, Museum Arnhem, Arnhem, Netherlands (2014); Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah, UAE (2013); California Pacific Triennial, Newport Beach, USA (2013); Welcome to the Jungle, Museum of Contemporary Art Kumamoto, Japan (2013); Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane, Australia (2012); Six Lines of Flight, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA (2012); The Map as Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, USA (2012); PANORAMA, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2012); Kuandu Biennale, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan (2012); Singapore Biennale, National Museum of Singapore (2011); Roving Eye, Sorlandets Kunstmuseum, Norway (2011); Atopia: Art and City in the 21st Century, Centre de Cultura Conteporània de Barcelona, Spain (2010); The River Project, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Australia (2010); Incheon International Women Artists’ Biennale, Korea (2009); transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA (2008) and Arko Museum, Seoul, Korea (2007); Fukuoka Triennale, Japan (2005). Chung’s solo exhibitions include: Homes, Homs, Where Art Thou, mc2 gallery, Milan, Italy (2014); Tiffany Chung, Lieu-Commun Espace d’Art Contemporain, Toulouse, France (2014); an archaeology project for future remembrance & the Galápagos Project: on the brink of our master plans, Galerie Quynh, HCMC, Vietnam (2013); TOMORROW ISN’T HERE, Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York, USA (2012); Fukagawa Shokudo, Fukagawa Tokyo Modan Kan, Tokyo, Japan (2011); Scratching the Walls of Memory, Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York (2010).
Tiffany Chung is a co-founder of Sàn Art, an independent, artist-initiated, non-profit gallery space & reading room in Hochiminh City, Vietnam.
