The author Djuna Barnes has been quoted as saying, "A strong sense of identity gives man an idea he can do no wrong; too little accomplishes the same." Fiona Tan has always been similarly fascinated by the influence of an individual's self-perceived identity on their behaviour. Her complex background has forced her to never take her own identity for granted. Indonesian-born Tan is the daughter of a Chinese-Indonesian father and a Scottish-Australian mother and, though raised in Australia, she was educated in Germany and Holland. Confusion about her own identity has led her to explore the meaning of cultural and personality identity through her role as an artist. In her work, she examines how identities are constructed and how notions about identity impact our attitudes towards strangers and our assumptions about ourselves. Tan's first solo museum exhibition in the UK, at Modern Art Oxford, includes Countenance (first presented at Documenta 11). Here, Tan revisits August Sander's extensive photographic essay People of the 20th Century, in which he photographed more than five hundred German citizens between 1892 and 1954, and organised the portraits into seven portfolios according to profession and social milieu. (Runs till 29/05).

Additional Info
Bio/CV
Images
Correction at Hammer, UCLA (06/2005)
Correction at the New Museum, NY (04 to 06/2005)
Correction at MCA Chicago (02/2004 till 01/2005)
Time Zones at Tate Modern (10/2004 till 01/2005)
Facing Forward at 49th Venice Biennale (2001)
Adrian Searle on Time Zones (10/2004)
frieze exhibition review (2003)
Artforum review (12/2000)
KF#103: Fiona Tan

This interview was conducted via email during 03/2005.

Ana Finel Honigman: What were your initial impressions as a viewer looking at August Sander's People of the 20th Century?

Fiona Tan: I really like many of Sander's photographs. I am moved by them. I think they are fantastic and unique portraits. The quality varies but it fascinates me that he was very consistent in his approach, composition, technique and use of light, even though he took these photos over so many years.

AFH: So, you are primarily interested in his project from an aesthetic vantage point, but he intended it as sociology, didn't he?

FT: Sander saw himself as an artist. He was good friends with artists in Cologne and active in the city's art scene. True, he was interested in sociology but from an artist's perspective. In this way, I feel that our interests and perspectives are similar.

AFH: Why do you think Sander presented the project as semi-scientific instead of a series of artistic portraits?

FT: I think Sander's title is exaggerated. After all, his project is not of "People of the 20th Century" at all. He only photographed people living in Germany and in fact the most of them lived in Cologne and its surrounding environs. Also his categories are quirky and odd to us now, particularly the last 7th section.

AFH: Are you viewing your project as a critique of Sander's intentions?

FT: Not at all! Sander was and is a great inspiration. It is true that our views on society and its make-up have changed since Sander's time but shifts like this are inevitable. I am well aware that the structure of my own work Countenance, my list of people and professions, will look just as odd and weird in 70 years time as Sander's does now.

AFH: Do you think the categories you chose are representative of our era in the way Sander's categories might have represented his?

FT: There is a lot on the sociological side of this project I could discuss and talk about in detail but I also really enjoy looking at the images. They have a beautiful fine grain, since he was working with large glass negatives and I admire the dignified, fascinating individuals he photographed.

AFH: It is interesting that you respond to them as individuals while Sander was conceptualizing them as representatives of types or specific categories. Would you say that a lot of your work questions the idea of individuality?

FT: Yes. But I think it questions the idea of types and categories even more so.

AFH: Why did you choose to work with video, instead of still photography?

FT: I film portraits instead of simply photographing still images because I find that looking at a filmed portrait of a person is a very different experience than looking at a photograph.

AFH: Because a photograph is essentially an object but a video portrait can better replicate the uncomfortable experience of encountering a stranger?

FT: Perhaps. A photograph -- being frozen in time -- means I can glance over it again and again. I can home in on certain details, parts of the background at my leisure. Oddly, whilst one might think a filmed portrait offers similar results, I find I become less aware of the image and more aware of the person as an image.

AFH: You mean you are more self-conscious when looking at them?

FT: I am more aware of the person within, or even behind, the image. The passage of time emphasizes the relationship between subject and camera or the contract/construct. The tiniest movement made by the person portrayed -- a blink, a slight hand movement - is testimony to the artificiality of the encounter and simultaneously (in)voluntary resistance against it. It is as though I as a viewer, cannot own and cannot pocket the image in the same way I imagine I could if it were only a still photograph hanging on the wall. When looking at a video portrait, I am looking at something which is constantly escaping me.

Ana Finel Honigman is a frequent contributor to such publications as Artnet, ArtReview, Modern Painters and Tema Celeste. She is also a PhD candidate in the history of art at Oxford University.

Image © Fiona Tan, courtesy Frith Street Gallery