The Intermission and Emalin are pleased to present Unbroken, Sung Tieu’s first solo exhibition in Greece.

The exhibition comprises ten analogue photographic prints and a series of new sculptures made on-site from bricks and textiles. At its core lies the series of photographs titled (Un)Kraut (2023), a contemplative study that reflects upon the tenacity of seemingly undesirable garden flora, resiliently flourishing within the urban environment. The intimate photographs were taken in Berlin Alt-Hohenschönhausen at the housing complex “Gehrenseestrasse 1”. This location holds profound significance for the artist, as it was her childhood home. The housing estate also once served as a temporary residence for thousands of Vietnamese contract workers during the 1980s, forming an integral part of the GDR’s low-wage labour force. The complex was a site of a vibrant Vietnamese community who were socially and bureaucratically segregated from the East-German population. Abandoned since 2003, and literally gone to seed, the 14.000 square-metre area has now been overgrown with wild weeds, claiming back the concrete floors and apartment blocks. Anticipating the ruin’s demolition next year, Tieu’s photographs emerge as a meditation on what constitutes resilience and survival in an ever-changing environment of cohabitation.

In conjunction with the photographs, the exhibition introduces six new sculptures, formally distinct works in its reduction to form, each made with locally sourced bricks from around Pirae- us and enveloped in sections of gridded fabric imported from Tieu’s Berlin studio. While the bricks themselves evoke widely available and cost-effective construction materials, the sewn fabric pieces serve as a protective and commemorative layer, echoing the inevitable cycles of creation and decay, evoking a sense of loss and longing.

Sung Tieu is an artist based in Berlin. She has produced a great body of work over the past decade which has its roots in Minimalist reduction. Her practice operates at the intersection of politics, its bureaucracy and personal experience. Using diverse artistic mediums ranging from photography, sculpture, installation, sound and video, her practice navigates the diasporic expe- riences of spatial and social uncertainty. Although based in research, her exhibitions deliberately resist any singular discursive rendering, and instead give rise to layered narrative readings.

The artist’s current and forthcoming exhibitions include Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, USA (2024), Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Germany (2024), Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Germany (2024), Kunstverein Salzburg, Austria (2024), MUMA – Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia (2024), Oakville Galleries, Ontario, Canada (2024), Shanghai Biennale (2023), Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland (2023) and Ordet, Milan (2023).