Erika Tan (b. 1967, Singapore) is a contemporary artist, researcher, and curator whose practice investigates the entanglements of history, memory, and representation. Working across installation, moving image, video, performance, and participatory projects, Tan interrogates how narratives of culture, identity, and heritage are constructed, circulated, and contested. Her work often draws on archival research, anthropological methods, and field investigation, exploring how institutions such as museums and galleries shape understandings of history, value, and artistic production. Central to her practice is the interrogation of colonial and postcolonial legacies, focusing on the voices and experiences often excluded from dominant narratives. Through careful layering of material, visual, and textual fragments, Tan creates environments that reveal the complexity, gaps, and contradictions inherent in cultural memory, inviting audiences to engage critically with what is seen and what is hidden.
Recurring themes in Tan’s work include the politics of display, institutional authority, and the circulation of cultural objects and ideas. She challenges conventional historiographies by foregrounding alternative perspectives and marginalized stories, emphasizing the contingent and constructed nature of historical knowledge. Her installations often employ a poetic and speculative approach, weaving together the tangible and ephemeral to reflect on human experience, displacement, and memory. Tan’s interest in the interplay between materiality and narrative extends to objects, film, and the architectural space of exhibition, highlighting how histories are embedded in physical and social environments.
Tan has exhibited widely in solo and group contexts. Notable solo projects include “Come Cannibalise Us, Why Don’t You?” at NUS Museum, Singapore and Central Saint Martins (2014–2016), and “Barang-Barang” at Stanley Picker Gallery, London (2022), which explored material and mnemonic entanglements across histories and geographies. Her work has been included in the Diaspora Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), Artist and Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies at Tate Touring and National Gallery Singapore (2016–2017), Singapore Biennale (2006), Cities on the Move at Hayward Gallery, London (1999), and Thermocline of Art at ZKM, Germany (2007), demonstrating sustained engagement with transnational dialogues on memory, colonialism, and contemporary art.