In an era dominated by screens, images of place and identity traverse borders, carrying with them layers of memory, longing and displacement. Tiffany Sia’s Phantasmatic Screens at Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean interrogates these transnational imaginations, offering a meditation on territory and the ways visual culture shapes our perception of the world. The exhibition explores the tension between physical presence and psychic landscapes, demonstrating how the act of viewing is itself a form of movement, a negotiation between what is seen, what is remembered and what is imagined. At the heart of Sia’s practice is the belief that space is never neutral; it is constructed, remembered, and contested. Drawing on Edward Said’s concept of “imaginative geographies”, Sia situates her work within a framework where landscapes are both politically charged and deeply personal, allowing those in exile to relate to places they no longer inhabit through symbolic and affectively charged lenses.
Sia’s exhibition, the culmination of her receipt of the Baloise Art Prize 2024, presents two major works: The Sojourn (2023) and Antipodes III (2024). Both transform cinematic experience into sculptural form, challenging conventional modes of spectatorship. In The Sojourn, the artist traces the footsteps of King Hu, the revered wuxia filmmaker who fled Beijing in 1949, retracing locations from his legendary Dragon Inn (1967). The film becomes a layered exploration of cultural transmission, exile, and territorial sovereignty, merging the sensibilities of a road movie with a political meditation. Its projection onto an undulating polyester curtain transforms the image into a living sculpture, inviting the audience to encounter memory as a tactile, immersive presence. The film culminates in a meeting with Pilin Yapu, an Atayal filmmaker and founder of Taiwan’s first indigenous elementary school, foregrounding questions of cultural preservation and the legacies of language. Eschewing conventional subtitles, Sia emphasises sound and intonation, asking viewers to engage actively with the poetic textures of speech itself.
Antipodes III continues this investigation through a suspended rear-view mirror, onto which images of Kinmen – militarised yet serene, empty yet resonant – are projected. Sia draws inspiration from Marshall McLuhan: “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” By inverting the landscape and filtering it through reflective surfaces, she literalises this insight, highlighting the liminality of the present, poised between nostalgia and anticipation. Sia transforms the act of looking into a contemplative practice, disrupting habitual modes of reception and inviting viewers into a space where vision and memory coexist.
Born in Hong Kong in 1988 and now based in New York, Tiffany Sia has consistently engaged with questions of image-making, territory, and identity. Her solo exhibitions at ajh.pm, Bielefeld (2023), and Artists Space, New York (2021), alongside group exhibitions at the Fondazione Prada, Milan (2023); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023); Seoul Museum of Art (2022); and Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2022), reflect an international recognition of her contribution to contemporary moving-image practices. Her films have screened at MoMA Doc Fortnight (2021, 2024), TIFF Toronto International Film Festival (2024), New York Film Festival (2021, 2022), and Flaherty Film Seminar, Hamilton (2022), consolidating as a key voice in experimental cinema. Sia’s writing, notably On and Off-Screen Imaginaries (Primary Information, 2024), positions her as both practitioner and theorist, interrogating the relationship between cinema, spatiality and affect. Her work has been recognised through awards like the Baloise Art Prize (2024) and the George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award (2022).
Returning to Phantasmatic Screens, the exhibition’s interplay of media and materiality invites reflection on the ways visual culture mediates memory. Landscapes in Sia’s work are never mere backdrops; they are active agents in the construction of identity and memory. The tactile surfaces of curtain and mirror transform film into something almost tangible, a space that one inhabits rather than merely observes. The works ask viewers to enter interstitial space, where temporal and spatial boundaries are destabilised, echoing the dislocations experienced by those living between geographies, histories and cultures.
Sia’s approach resonates with other contemporary artists exploring similar terrains. Hito Steyerl, for instance, interrogates the global circulation of images and the politics of visibility, often using screens as sites of reflection and critique. Installations like Liquidity Inc. (2014) reveal the flows of information and capital shaping modern perception, aligning conceptually with Sia’s investigations of space and memory. Similarly, Cao Fei’s cinematic installations, including Asia One (2018), juxtapose digital and real-world landscapes to explore tensions between the personal and the geopolitical, resonating with Sia’s interest in the sensory experience of place. Another contemporary parallel is Emily Jacir, whose Where We Come From (2001–2003) documents Palestinian lives across exile and homeland, connecting personal narrative and geopolitical critique in ways that echo Sia’s nuanced engagements with culture and memory.
Looking further afield, artists such as Candice Breitz interrogate identity through immersive, multi-channel installations, foregrounding the viewer’s sensory engagement while probing socio-political contexts. Isaac Julien’s cinematic essays – particularly Western Union: Small Boats (2007) – explore diasporic experience through formally complex projections, akin to Sia’s sculptural cinematic language. Within this contemporary landscape, Sia’s work asserts the moving image as a medium capable of personal reflection and global critique alike. Phantasmatic Screens exemplifies her ability to fuse visual and spatial poetics with political and cultural interrogation. By manipulating projection surfaces and recontextualising familiar landscapes, she destabilises habitual spectatorship and encourages active engagement with both form and content. The works are contemplative yet urgent, intimate yet expansive, prompting reflection on memory, exile and the fluidity of cultural transmission.
Phantasmatic Screens is a meditation on vision and remembrance, on how histories are inscribed onto landscapes and how individuals navigate spaces they no longer inhabit. Sia’s interventions – curtains that breathe with projected light, mirrors that invert and refract – foreground the materiality of seeing and the affective weight of memory. Her work demonstrates that the moving image is not only a storytelling tool but also a vessel for contemplation, capable of shaping our understanding of territory, identity and the temporal rhythms of exile. In this sense, Sia’s exhibition is profoundly meaningful: it reminds us that art, at its most powerful, transforms perception, opens dialogue between past and present and illuminates the spaces where memory and imagination converge.
Phantasmatic Screens is at MUDAM, Luxembourg until 11 January 2026: mudam.com
Words: Shirley Stevenson
Image Credits:
1. Tiffany Sia, Antipodes III, 2024. Collection Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. Donation 2024 – Baloise, Installation view, Art Basel Statements, 2024. Courtesy of the artist, FELIX GAUDLITZ, Vienna, and Maxwell Graham, New York. Photo: Choreo © Mudam Luxembourg.
2. Tiffany Sia, The Sojourn, 2023 (video stills). Collection Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Donation 2024 – Baloise. Courtesy of the artist, FELIX GAUDLITZ, Vienna, and Maxwell Graham, New York © Mudam Luxembourg.
3. Tiffany Sia, The Sojourn, 2023. Collection Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. Donation 2024 – Baloise. Installation view, Art Basel Statements, 2024. Courtesy of the artist, FELIX GAUDLITZ, Vienna, and Maxwell Graham, New York. Photo: Choreo © Mudam Luxembourg.
4. Tiffany Sia, The Sojourn, 2023 (video stills). Collection Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Donation 2024 – Baloise. Courtesy of the artist, FELIX GAUDLITZ, Vienna, and Maxwell Graham, New York © Mudam Luxembourg.
