Born in Da Nang, Vietnam in 1969, artist Tiffany Chung mines personal and cultural memory, retracing histories of conflict, displacement, and migration in drawings, sculptures, videos, and photographs.
Chung’s interest in forced immigration due to war and political conflict stems from a personal history of fleeing Vietnam with her family after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
finding one's shadow in ruins and rubble, from the "Syria Project" (2014) by Tiffany ChungSan José Museum of Art
finding one’s shadow in ruins and rubble (2014) is part of the artist’s “Syria Project,” an ongoing investigation of Syria’s humanitarian crisis that parallels her own experience of displacement.
The work is comprised of thirty-one handcrafted mahogany light boxes, within which found photographs printed on Plexiglas are illuminated by LED lights.
finding one's shadow in ruins and rubble, from the "Syria Project" (detail) (2014) by Tiffany ChungSan José Museum of Art
Alluding to a city in ruins, the small mahogany boxes each contain photographs of Homs, Syria—previously the third largest city in Syria. Homs was heavily damaged by the country’s ongoing civil war, specifically the Siege of Homs, from 2011 to 2014.
Sourcing her images from international news and the visual-media sites Reuters and Getty Images, Chung suggests a place that is both unknown and yet somehow eerily familiar; her crumbling cityscape is evidence of a way of life now gone.
finding one's shadow in ruins and rubble, from the "Syria Project" (2014) by Tiffany ChungSan José Museum of Art
While each box contains a portion of the city’s topography, Chung also creates a topography out of the boxes themselves, which are arranged like a chaotic cityscape.
finding one's shadow in ruins and rubble, from the "Syria Project" (detail) (2014) by Tiffany ChungSan José Museum of Art
The cityscape, fragmented across these mahogany boxes, echoes the geographical shifts in a country traumatized by war: the displacement of people and resources, the constant shift between livable and unlivable space, and growth and disappearance of towns and cities.
The absence of people in the illuminated images of this city is notable, and acts as a reminder of the numerous people who continue to be displaced as refugees in the Syrian Civil War. In doing so, the work is a poignant meditation on the incalculable.
finding one's shadow in ruins and rubble, from the "Syria Project" (2014) by Tiffany ChungSan José Museum of Art
San José Museum of Art recently added finding one’s shadow in ruins and rubble to the collection and was featured the work in the Museum’s 2021 exhibition South East North West: New Works from the Collection.
Tiffany Chung's finding one’s shadow in ruins and rubble (2014) is part of the artist’s “Syria Project,” and was on view in SJMA's exhibition: South East North West: New Works from the Collection. Learn more about the exhibition here.
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