Rise and Fall
2009

colour, stereo
2 channel
duration 26 min.
2 HD projectors, 2 media players, sync software, amplifier, stereo speakers, 2 rear projection screens: minimal dimensions: 2.5 x 1.4 m (h x w)
For her two-screen installation, Rise and Fall, Tan filmed in Niagara Falls, Belgium and the Netherlands, constructing a narrative of isolation, loss and dislocation by using water as an evocative metaphor for time and for memories of a woman’s life. Tan interperses images of an older and younger woman – depicting a story of two lives while suggesting they may be the same person – with images of moving bodies of water. The viewer is shown glimpse of intimate moments – bathing, caresses of a lover, routine make-up application – that both unite and divide these two iterations of a woman separated by time. Pointing to the ephemeral nature of human existence, Rise and Fall offers a meditation on the reflective gaze and examines how memories influence how we live in the present. The imposing scale of the installation confronts the viewer with a visceral, bodily experience and captures the tension between the past and the future, between memory and forgetting.
Credits
Commissioned by the Vancouver Artgallery
Cast & Crew
Cast
Moniek Toebosch
Keyna Nara
Matthew Miller
Written and Directed by
Fiona Tan
Production Manager
Marty de Jong
Production Manager, Canada
Stephanie Rebick
Director of Photography
Claire Pijman
Peter Lataster
Edited by
Danniel Danniel, Fiona Tan
Sound Design
Hugo Dijkstal
Camera Assistant
Louise Oeben
Camera Assistant, Canada
Ben Lichty
Production Assistant, Canada
Matthew Miller
Film Lab
Deluxe, Toronto
Cineco, Amsterdam
Film Transfer
Filmmore, Amsterdam
Grading
Wouter Suyderhoud
Filmstock
Kodak
Catering
Wies Toebosch
Marty de Jong
Produced by
Fiona Tan
With thanks to: Bruce Grenville, Rudy Luijters, Mieke Bal, Ernst van Alphen, Peter Delpeut, Wies Toebosch, Jane Hamlyn, Charlotte Schepke
Filmed on location in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, USA
Commissioned by the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada
Funded by Vancouver Art Gallery and Frith Street Gallery, London
© Fiona Tan, 2009