Fiona Tan: DEPOT (2015)

BALTIC presents a survey exhibition and a major new commission by the Dutch artist and filmmaker Fiona Tan. Born in 1966 in Pekan Baru, Indonesia, Tan works within the contested territory of representation: how we represent ourselves and the mechanisms that determine how we interpret the representation of others.The spectacular commission DEPOT, made especially for BALTIC's Level 4 gallery, re-imagines ‘Jonah the Giant Whale', a preserved whale exhibited inside a lorry which toured across Europe from the 1950s to the mid-1970s.

Tan has rebuilt the 76-foot-long vehicle; however, it now contains a cabinet of curiosities, inviting the viewer to climb aboard.

Drawing on Newcastle’s forgotten history as a major whaling port, DEPOT is an exhibition within an exhibition, an immersive presentation that also includes a new film installation incorporating footage from the depots of natural history museums internationally.

The exhibition also includes Leviathan 2015, a new, monumental projection of found archival footage of the stripping of a whale. The title of the work makes reference to the sea monster Leviathan in the Old Testament. The word has since become synonymous with any large sea creature, in particular the whale.