Fiona Tan Depot, 2015 Moving image, 22 min. 40 sec
Click here to visit the artist’s website. ‘seeing the world through glass’ Depot reflects Tan’s ongoing interest in public and private collections of objects. It incorporates footage filmed in the Leiden and Berlin natural history museums. Specimens amassed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries form the basis of most natural history museums. However, ‘natural history’ remains a curious term. It encapsulates the troubled complexities of humankind’s relationship to the natural world. When it comes to collecting, one must first kill and render lifeless that which one wishes to preserve. This work builds upon several of Tan’s recent works that call into question the ways in which museums represent and interpret history and humankind’s place in the world. Credits: Voice-over spoken by Andrew Bennett The work was commissioned by the BALTIC, Gateshead