The installations by Berlin-based artist Sung Tieu (*1987 in Hai Duong, Vietnam) address issues of migration and identity, and bureaucracy and its control mechanisms. The works conceived for the exhibition One Thousand Times shed light on a hitherto neglected chapter in German post-war history: In 1980, the GDR and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam concluded an agreement about the recruitment of Vietnamese contract workers, who were to be deployed in the GDR’s state-owned enterprises. Subsequently, around 60,000 Vietnamese contract labourers came to the GDR.
After reunification in 1990, they faced an uncertain future. Tieu‘s personal family history has driven her exploration of the socio-political impact of this agreement. The exhibition focuses on the housing complex Gehrenseestrasse 1 in Berlin, where the artist spent parts of her childhood. Comprising approximately 1,000 apartments, the estate was one of the largest housing compounds for Vietnamese contract workers. Presently, plans are in place to demolish the complex, which remained vacant since 2002 until today, and replace it with a new high-rise district on the 6.3-hectare site. Tieu interweaves her autobiographical experiences with the sociopolitical and economic developments reflected in the history of the housing estate and those who lived there. The resulting works of art shed light on aspects of labour, the regulation of domestic environments, and control over privacy.
Tieu’s artistic production is rooted in archival research. Collected and methodically cataloged archive material is interwoven with various media including objects, architectural interventions, documents, drawings, videos, and sounds. The outcome is carefully orchestrated, resulting in atmospherically dense spatial installations characterised by a concise visual language and a plethora of diverse analogies.
Systematics, referring to systems of order and classification, are central to Tieu’s visual language, as is the use of materials such as steel or glass, which evoke a sense of distance. Additionally, the artist frequently integrates everyday objects lacking personal signatures into her work as readymades. Formally, her works draw from the aesthetics of minimal art. Initially, this may appear to contradict the artist’s narrative approach and personal involvement, given that the art movement that emerged in the USA in the 1970s was defined by its categorical rejection of any psychological content, social contextualisation, or political statements. However, Sung Tieu employs the formal vocabulary of minimalism while imbuing it with social reality, thereby narrating an individual, sociological, and historically specific story
