Mountains and molehills is the name of the exhibition EYE is dedicating to visual artist and filmmaker Fiona Tan. Or in proper Dutch: mosquitoes and elephants. Much of her work is driven by the adventure that is watching, by her fascination with memory and history, time and landscape, and how we try to capture that. You can make that as heavy or light as you like, but the longer you look around, the more you see. In the middle of the exhibition space is a little house, seemingly made of red brick. Step inside, and it turns out to be a time machine. Suddenly I found myself face to face with a little girl wearing a typically Dutch hat. Smiling curiously, she looked straight at me; the time gap of a hundred years had suddenly disappeared.
Until now, I really only knew Tan from two unusual, rather fascinating films. Ascent, an experiment balancing between documentary and fiction around the adored Japanese volcano Fujiyama. And her first feature film History's Future, which she devised with film critic Jonathan Romney. A kind of epic film poem in which the protagonist wanders through raw archival footage of European cities in great turmoil. 'The future is the fabrication of a madman,' the wandering hero recalls. The course of history is a carnival of chance, I made of that myself.
Footsteps
Coincidence. That red house is a tiny movie theater where regular Footsteps, Tan's latest film work will be screened. The programme booklet calls it a video installation. Tan has a keen interest in image archives, and EYE had invited her to make new work with material from the institute's overwhelmingly large image bank. This was fantastic and at the same time too immense to get hold of. Until, by chance, she came across old, coloured black-and-white images of everyday Holland. That touched her and gave her a start. Second coincidence: when clearing out her study, she discovered a collection of letters her father had written to her from Australia in the 1980s. She had just arrived in the Netherlands then and was trying to find her place there as a student.
Footsteps superimposes, in short, two layers of history. The picture consists of a montage of old documentary material showing the Netherlands of about a hundred years ago. From children playing to busy streets, but especially the hard manual labour in the fields and factories. On the soundtrack, a voice reading letter texts. Letters in which Tan's father effortlessly complements personal family announcements with things happening on the world stage at the time. Like the suppression of protests in China and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It produces a curious and difficult to describe effect. Two times, vast differences and yet the same world. A time machine? That word immediately came to mind with one of the first images, that girl I mentioned earlier.
The walker and the mirror
In the exhibition space around it, some seven earlier works, mostly video installations, of slightly more modest size than Footsteps. In Vertical Wide, Vertical Red, Vertical White (2018) is the deadpan, yet hypnotic sight of the nighttime flow of car traffic in Los Angeles. For Downside Up (2002), Tan filmed silhouettes and shadows of passers-by. Or is it the other way around? Because after a moment of pleasant confusion, you discover how Tan has disrupted the gaze.
My favourite is the more ambitious Gray Glass, a 20-minute video loop on three screens. A dreamlike yet realistic world with mountains and clouds, snow, ice and a courageously advancing hiker entering a mysterious cave. It is easy to let your imagination run wild in this and see philosophical imagery in it. Then again, it is nice to know that that walker, with an undoubtedly symbolic mirror strapped to his back, is borrowed from an ancient custom. Once, it was almost impossible to make large mirrors; only in Italy did they master the technique. For transport to other countries, these extremely expensive valuables were not entrusted to the back of a donkey. Such a mirror had to be carried across the dangerous Alps on foot by a hiker.
Imagination
Is it necessary to know such things in order to take Tan's journey of discovery with her, as it were? To discover the lines that run between different pieces of work? Not always, one's own imagination is usually given enough. But at Inventory (2012), a six-screen, ever-changing collage of images from the home of architect and collector Sir John Soane (1753-1837), it would have given me more guidance. It certainly doesn't hurt to know what drives Tan. The beautifully crafted publication accompanying the exhibition, packed with images, articles and an interview, more than satisfies in that respect.
But more importantly, take your time with it. Most video installations are repetitive loops, so pay attention to the timer and get in at the start. This is especially true of the hour-and-a-half-plus-long Footsteps, which starts at a number of set times. At the presentation, Tan said he would appreciate it if visitors saw the whole film from start to finish. Indeed, you get a nice impression of the project if you sample a bit halfway through, but I take Tan's recommendation. Initially, the hour and a half seemed richly long to me, but gradually I discovered that precisely that length makes the experience grow slowly. In the seemingly loose collection of images, a sober poetry nevertheless emerges, a kind of rhythm with drama and intimacy, and growing attachment to this little-seen image of the Netherlands. And those letters on the soundtrack, however modest, really do tell a story. Perhaps this is Tan's most personal film yet.
Good to knowToo short of time to see everything in one go? At the box office, exchange your ticket for a free return ticket.
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