many tan

A question that has long concerned many tan is: how can artistic work embody resistance and open space for both individual and collective agency? Their search has been guided by practices grounded in a present and generous sense of place. Each encounter with such an object, person, or environment affirms a worldview that is interdependent and indivisible. Each small story pieced together reveals the lie that capitalist and colonial systems have deeply embedded in them. Yet, they believe that joy and hope can still be found in the cracks and folds.

Many is drawn to work that recognises the sociality and performativity of lived experience — work that gently asks: how could this world be different? more thoughtful? more engaged? more liveable? While their cynical answer to the question ‘What do you do?’ remains ‘artist’, they do not believe that art is the only place to seek such answers. On the contrary, they often find the most unannounced and invisible forms of work to be the most radical. Among the messy overlaps of practice and life, they do not claim a fixed ‘position’; what emerges is often the result of chance and exchange.