Kiang Malingue is pleased to present entangled traces, disremembered landscapes, Tiffany Chung’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, featuring new cartographic works and a 3-channel video installation. By tracing the entanglements of nature, culture, colonialism, war, and state-making, and introducing pivotal temporal aspects to the act of mapping, the internationally acclaimed artist continues her ever-deepening exploration of geopolitics, history, and memory, marking critical shifts in historical narratives.

The works on view include an edition of USM GLOBAL (2022-2023) commissioned by PAFA, a delicately textured piece associated with Studying for USM GLOBAL, Chung’s online archive of her research in mapping the U.S. military global footprint and spotlighting regions including countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan in Southwest & Central Asia, as well as Okinawa, Japan in the Asia Pacific. Chung also layers the complex history between the U.S. and Hawai’i in the late 19th century, and between the U.S. and Japan during WWII in her drawing from faraway lands to dust we return (2018), referencing Hawai’i as a traumatic site of memory: transpacific migration, plantation labor, economic expansion, and military imperialism. Her personal quest for understanding the conflict known as the Vietnam War and its aftermath has led Chung further into unpacking how the United States’ commercial interests intertwined with its Cold War policy and political influence in places such as Guatemala, exemplified in another embroidery work El Pulpo: UFCo’s Great White Fleet Routes and Properties in Central America & the Caribbean (2020).

New works on vellum and paper from the Terra Rouge: circles, traces of time, rebellious solitude series inspect the terra rouge plateau of Bình Long–Phước Long in three distinct periods, depicting Neolithic circular earthworks (CEW) dated between 2300-300 B.C.; an extensive network of rubber plantations established in 1897 by French colonialists; and abandoned airfields that Chung’s father frequented as a South Vietnamese helicopter pilot during wartime. Chung contends that revisiting Neolithic circular earthworks might lead us to imagine a different possibility—a hypothetical trajectory in which earthwork groups had never been incorporated into a new socioeconomic and political polity, but instead chosen to remain in what the artist calls “rebellious solitude.”

In the 3-channel video If Water Has Memories (2022), Chung retrieved from the UNHCR archive statistics, archival maps, and coordinates of pirate attack locations between October 1985 and June 1986 in the Gulf of Thailand, where she filmed the body of water that witnessed Vietnamese refugees enduring acts of violence. Performing a symbolic burial at sea, this poignant gesture of remembrance commemorates lost lives and calls for acknowledgment of historical atrocities in hope of healing. Interweaving music, poetry, and moving image, the work meditates on loss and trauma while reminding us of the humanity buried underneath the inhumanity.

(About Tiffany Chung)

Tiffany Chung’s interdisciplinary practice enquires into a complex framework of social, political, economic, and environmental processes, at times entwined in landscape archaeology and historical ecology. Chung analyzes and materializes researched findings into hand-drawn and embroidered cartographic works and mixed media installations consisting of drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and videos. Chung’s work strives to create interventions into the narrative produced through statecraft or is dominant in the public sphere with people’s memories and lived experiences.

Chung’s upcoming projects include a public installation at the National Mall (DC) and a solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art, slated to open in August 2023. Chung has exhibited at museums and biennials worldwide including MoMA (NY), Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), British Museum (UK), Louisiana MoMA & SMK (Denmark), SchirnKunsthalle Frankfurt (Germany), Nobel Peace Center (Norway), Venice Biennale (Italy), Sharjah Biennale (UAE), Biennial de Cuenca (Ecuador), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Japan), Gwangju Bienalle (Korea), among other venues. Public collections include SAAM, British Museum, Louisiana MoMA, SFMoMA, Minneapolis Institute of Art, M+ Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Singapore Art Museum, and others.