Fiona Tan

The Dutch artist Fiona Tan is well known for her photography, film, and video installations in which she frequently addresses ideas of identity, memory, and history. This publication documents on one hand recent works including a new large scale project commissioned by the Grand-Hornu Museum of Contemporary Arts in Mons, Belgium and presented here for the first time. This work, titled Shadow Archive, is inspired by Paul Otlet (1868-1944), considered to be one of the forefathers of information science. Shadow Archive deals in particular with Otlet's decades-long utopian quest to establish a central repository for the world's information; between 1919 and 1934, Otlet and his team assembled more than 16 million index cards of data. This book incorporate previously unpublished original drawings and notes drafted by Otlet selected by Fiona Tan for her installation, an amazing archive which reveal his visionary and creative personality as well as his exploration of the limits of the human knowledge.

Conversation : Fiona Tan & Ellen Mara De Wachter. Design: Casier/Fieuws, Bruxelles

Fiona Tan, artiste néerlandaise de renommée internationale, explore depuis 20 ans les territoires de la mémoire à travers ses installations mêlant photographies, vidéos, films, dessins et documents d'archives. Cette première publication francophone consacrée à son travail présente les œuvres récentes ainsi que son dernier projet, fruit de ses recherches menées pendant sa résidence au sein des archives de Paul Otlet conservées au Mundaneum de Mons. Intitulée L'Archive des ombres, cette œuvre est inspirée par le rêve de Paul Otlet (1868-1944), l'un des précurseurs des sciences de l'information qui, bien avant qu'on puisse imaginer la naissance d'Internet, eut l'ambition utopique de répertorier au Mundaneum, tous les savoirs du monde. Pour L'Archive des ombres, vaste installation où la réalité et la fiction s'entremêlent, Fiona Tan présente des vidéos, des textes, des dessins ainsi qu'une sélection de documents originaux écrits ou recueillis par Paul Otlet. Une archive incroyable publiée pour la première fois, révèlant la personnalité visionnaire et créative de Paul Otlet, ainsi que son exploration des limites de la connaissance humaine.

The Dutch artist Fiona Tan is well known for her photography, film, and video installations in which she frequently addresses ideas of identity, memory, and history. This publication documents on one hand recent works including a new large scale project commissioned by the Grand-Hornu Museum of Contemporary Arts in Mons, Belgium and presented here for the first time. This work, titled Shadow Archive, is inspired by Paul Otlet (1868-1944), considered to be one of the forefathers of information science. Shadow Archive deals in particular with Otlet's decades-long utopian quest to establish a central repository for the world's information; between 1919 and 1934, Otlet and his team assembled more than 16 million index cards of data. This book incorporate previously unpublished original drawings and notes drafted by Otlet selected by Fiona Tan for her installation, an amazing archive which reveal his visionary and creative personality as well as his exploration of the limits of the human knowledge.