Meet the Artists | Tiffany Chung

Why It Matters

Chung’s map‑based art reframes refugee narratives, compelling policymakers and the public to confront erased histories and prompting more humane, informed responses to displacement.

Key Takeaways

• Chung uses maps to expose erased historical narratives.
• Her research blends art, archaeology, and refugee testimonies.
• She spent three years documenting Vietnamese refugee pirate attacks.
• Maps become protest tools against political amnesia and control.
• Interdisciplinary practice aims to connect memory, tenderness, and policy.

Summary

The video profiles Tiffany Chung, a Vietnamese‑born artist who describes herself as both creator and researcher. Her work centers on re‑mapping sites of displacement and militarized control—most notably a painstaking three‑year project charting pirate attacks on Vietnamese refugee boats in the Gulf of Thailand and a broader map of the U.S. military’s global footprint. Chung’s methodology is intensely interdisciplinary: she combines fieldwork, oral histories, archival data, and a range of media—from painting and sculpture to video and new‑media installations. She argues that official records often erase lived experience, so she “unravels all the threads” and then “reweaves them” into visual narratives that both inform and emotionally engage viewers. Memorable moments include her vivid analogy, “If you want to tell a very difficult story, you get them in first, then punch them in the gut,” and the anecdote of fixing a chair in a dining‑room setting before unveiling a map that challenges political amnesia. These examples illustrate how she balances stark confrontation with tenderness, inviting audiences to feel the human cost behind statistics. The significance of Chung’s practice lies in its ability to transform cartography into a form of protest, pressuring policymakers and the public to confront forgotten histories. By foregrounding refugee testimonies and environmental impacts, her work reshapes discourse around migration, memory, and geopolitical power, offering a template for how art can serve as rigorous social research.

Original Description

Art Basel’s Meet the artists series presents contemporary creatives shaping today’s cultural landscape

In her Houston studio, the Vietnamese-American artist reflects on displacement, memory, and the ways in which mapping can give form to lived experience

Working with drawing, installation, and archives, Tiffany Chung examines the human consequences of war and migration. ‘I’m not a cartographer by trade, so I borrow from the medium,’ explains the Vietnam-born, US-based artist. ‘It opens the door for me to learn about history and global affairs. I’m interested in the entanglements between political, social, economic, and environmental processes.’

In her studio, Chung translates complex historical records, satellite imagery, and demographic statistics into carefully composed visual forms that hold both analytical precision and emotional resonance. Chung’s artworks do not simply chart territories; they trace the movement of people, the persistence of memory, and the lasting imprint of displacement. ‘A map is a way to control a place from above; it is a way to erase what is in the landscape,’ she explains. ‘How do we reclaim that power, so that maps can also tell stories that have been erased?’

Tiffany Chung is represented by Kiang Malingue (Hong Kong, New York), Max Estrella (Madrid), and Ryan Lee (New York).

Meet the artists | Tiffany Chung was produced in collaboration with Nowness.

Production Company: Baby Birds Films

Director: Garrett Creamer

Director of Photography: Javier Fernandez

Editor: Patrick Hayes

Nowness

Managing Director: Gavin Humphries

Commissioning Director: Katie Metcalfe

Director, Arts & Editorial: Ananda Pellerin

Producer: Vanessa Lewis Jones

Junior Video Editor: Cayetano Garcia

Art Basel

Senior Editor, France: Patrick Steffen

Creative Producer: Akiel Gallina