ERIKA TAN

Erika Tan's body of work reflects her longstanding and sophisticated interest in cultural and anthropological issues. The artist's multimedia installations, photographic works, videos and more recently web sites have found an audience worldwide and have been shown extensively in the UK. Group shows include 'EAST International 2000' at Norwich Gallery, and 'Cities on the Move' at the Hayward Gallery (1999). Her first solo show 'PIDGIN interrupted transmission', a Film and Video Umbrella Touring Exhibition, is currently touring to venues across the UK accompanied by a monograph publication (ISBN 0-9538634-8-4).

Tan has made innovative use of new technologies for digital works. These have included the inIVA project 'Touring London' (2001) and 'Slipstream' (2001), a web-based project curated by Film and Video Umbrella. Via her involvement with the arts organisation Above:Below, Tan has acted as Curator for 'HUB@RiCHMiX' (2001), and as Project Manager on 'ICA in China' (1998-9) and 'Imaginaria 99' for Cap Gemini.

Erika Tan has received numerous awards for her work, including the Digital Arts Fellowship, awarded by The Arts Foundation (1998), the Arts Council Connections Fund - Singapore (1999) and the ACME Live/Work Studio Award (2001-2004). Forthcoming site-specific projects include an East England Arts Commission for Eden House, Cambridge as well as a new commission for a permanent work for the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.

Erika Tan was born in Singapore, graduated in Social Anthropology and Archaeology from King's College, Cambridge (1991), studied Film Directing at the Beijing Film Academy, China (1993-4) and completed an MA in Fine Art at Central St Martins School of Art, London (1997).
 

Her works:
Floor Games & Rubix Cubes (Sites Of Construction Series) by Erika Tan
Curated by Binghui Huangfu and Marion Pastor Roces.
Showed: 05 Jun - 27 Jul 2003 at the Concourse, Esplanade, Singapore
Inspired by games, puzzles and stratagems, Erika Tan uses the concept of the grid with its long history as a tool for measuring, mapping and differentiating in this work. Her interactive ground installation is part of an island-wide, multiple-venue exhibition Science Fictions - organised in conjunction with the Singapore Arts Festival 2003.

Passing — slipping between the boundaries unnoticed
1995, three-screen video work
'Passing' explores the representation of cultures, contrasting the fixed and constructed nature of these representations with the non-linear, non-narrative elements of analogue video and sound. In particular, the focus is on definitions of 'Chinese identity', its historical transformations and the role of the media in perpetuating particular stereotypes and categories. 'Passing' has been shown at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne in 1995 and as part of 'Half the Sky' at the Museum of London in 1997. The work was funded by the Arts Council of England's Black Arts Film and Video Fund.

Sites of Construction
1996, interactive floor installation, gaffer tape, mdf playing pieces, Victorian racial colour coding: red, white, yellow, brown, black.
'Sites of Construction' used a multiplicity of media - including video installation and a variety of different games - to explore the iconography of the grid and its usage throughout the last two centuries as a tool for measurement, mapping and the construction of difference. 'Sites of Construction' has been shown at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, in 1996 at Acorn Storage Space in London and, more recently, at CAS in Osaka, Japan.

boatrace
2000, audience participatory installation and event
'boatrace' is an audience participatory installation and event that forms a continuum with Tan's other investigations into colour coding and early Victorian racial classifications. Audiences are invited to make paper boats from a limited selection of coloured paper (red, yellow, white, black, and brown). The boats are later 'raced' on a nearby river. 'boatrace' has been shown and performed at CAS, Osaka, Japan and as part of East International, Norwich 2000. 'boatrace' was supported by a Year of the Artist residency at Norwich Gallery.

east
2000, installation, with sound (Asian bird song), video, lighting, Chintz wallpaper, tea chests, tea, lavender essence, P.I.R detectors, bird cages
'east' initially developed as a site-responsive work which focused on the Victorian history of Pitshanger Manor and its associated Victorian 'taste' for Chinoiserie. Referencing a particular wallpaper design (chintz) found in the drawing-room of the Manor, the work sought to keep a narrow balance between revealing and obscuring information, history and meaning: a balance that navigated a path between beauty and pain; the atmospheric and the real; the poetic and the literal. 'east' has been exhibited in various formations: 'Chintz', 'From China to Chintz' and 'east', and has been shown as part of 'Empire & I' at Pitshanger Manor Museum and Gallery, London in 1999; as part of 'East International', Norwich Gallery, in 2000 and at Axiom Gallery, Cheltenham in 1999.

re-fresh:/circumstance/choice/chance
Erika Tan's work explores ideas of cultural identity, cultural difference, transgression and translation. Her work for identinet consists of a series of downloadable screensavers and other accessories through which the user can customise the desktop of their computer. Although their original function was to protect and refresh the computer screen, screensavers are now available in endless permutations that allow people free rein to express their individuality. By encouraging users to consider a complete makeover of their computer screen, Tan highlights both the surface nature of the changes and the underlying codes and patterns that determine genetic and cultural identity. re-fresh:/circumstance/choice/chance has been produced in collaboration with Ian Kerrigan, Karl Bunyan and Nadine Kennedy from dna.

Erika Tan, born in Singapore in 1967, is a British-based artist and curator whose work has evolved from an interest in anthropology and the moving image. Her work is often informed by specific cultural, geographical or physical contexts; exploring different media to create situations that excite, provoke, question, confront and invite comments from an audience.

Her work has been exhibited as part of EAST International 2000 at Norwich Gallery, and was included in "Cities on the Move" at The Hayward Gallery. She recently completed a Film & Video Umbrella Commission and is currently producing new work for a permanent work commissioned by East England Arts. She has exhibited both in the UK and abroad.

As an extension to her practice, Erika has also jointly curated and project managed art projects in association with Above:Below (an independent art organisation set up by Erika and Neil McConnon) such as: The ICA in China; Imaginaria Digital Art Prize '99; HUB @The RiCHMiX, an urban regeneration project; Souvenirs, interventionist project in Museum Street, London.

Erika has also had a long-standing interest and engagement with the Chinese Arts sector in Britain. Working as a Chinese Arts Worker and freelance research assistant/curator she has contributed to Half the Sky: Chinese Women in London, Museum of London, 1997. In Focus: Film and Video from the Chinese Diaspora: Britain and Another Province, Watermans Art Centre, London, 1997.

Erika studied Social Anthropology and Archaeology at Kings College, Cambridge; Film Directing at The Beijing Film Academy, followed by an M.A in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins School of Art, London.

Awards have included: The Arts Council Black Arts Video Award, 1993. Firstbase, ACAVA Studio Award, 1995. Digital Arts Fellowship, The Arts Foundation, 1998. British Council Travel Grant to Japan, Arts Council Connections Fund to Singapore, 99/2000. ACME Live Work Studio Award, London, 2001-2004.

PIDGIN offsets the apparently homogenising tendencies of an increasingly globalised economy with a vision of cultural interaction, forged out of difference and local inflection. PIDGIN becomes a metaphor for exploring the slippage, invention, creative adaption, flexibility and fluidity of communication exchanges, technological development and the artist's creative process.

PIDGIN is a Film and Video Umbrella Touring Exhibition in association with Norwich Gallery. Supported by National Touring Programme of The Arts Council of England.

Erika Tan is a British-based artist and curator from Singapore whose work has evolved from an interest in anthropology and the moving image. Her work is often informed by specific cultural, geographical or physical contexts, exploring different media to create situations that excite, provoke, question, confront and invite comments from an audience.

Erika Tan exhibited as part of EAST 2000 at Norwich Gallery, and her work was included in ‘Cities on the Move’ at The Hayward Gallery. She has exhibited both in the UK and abroad. The accompanying catalogue records previous projects the artist has undertaken and acts as an expansion of the ideas triggered by PIDGIN through conversations with Simon Wilmoth, Norwich School of Art and an essay by Dr. Nikos Papastergiadis, Head of Centre for Ideas, VCA, University of Melbourne.