Izu Photo Museum is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Fiona Tan, an internationally renowned artist working primarily with photography and video. Following three major exhibitions of her work in Japan – at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2013), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and National Museum of Art Osaka (2014–15) – this exhibition focuses on her new project Ascent, which takes Mt. Fuji as its starting point.

Fiona Tan is best known for her skillfully crafted and intensely moving installations, in which explorations of identity, memory and history are key. Tan’s artworks deal with the question of the gaze – both the way in which we look at images and, through them, at the world that surrounds us, and also the way in which images, like mirrors, sometimes seem to look back at us. Centered on the new audiovisual and photographic installation Ascent, her new solo exhibition at the Izu Photo Museum includes several new works shown for the first time.

Ascent
Commissioned on the occasion of this exhibition, Tan has created Ascent through a montage of over 4000 found still images of Mt. Fuji from all eras. Images were contributed by the public and were also selected from Izu Photo Museum’s own collection. Ascent is at once a rumination on this singular mountain and its ongoing relationship with human beings, a study of visual culture and a tribute to both photographic and film history. The resulting work considers the intertwinement of visibility and invisibility, distance and proximity. As Tan herself says: “These thousands of images encircle the mountain like a cloud – revealing it and hiding it at the same time.” Fictional narrative combines with documentary images, expanding the boundaries that divide stillness from movement, and pinpointing a unique area where photography and film meet and connect. Echoing the climb to the mountain’s peak, the narrative zigzags across narratives and histories, from ukiyo-e to the Second World War, from Western imperialism to contemporary tourism, from the dawn of photography to the present day.
Ascent unfolds as a contemplative visual essay, reflecting upon the capacities of contemporary digital visual media while referencing iconic films such as Chris Marker’s La Jetée.