Sung Tieu

born in 1987, Hai Duong - lives and works in Berlin

Sung Tieu’s installation brings together seemingly unrelated objects—a long wooden wall work, a postcard, and a rubber mat floor embedded with Indochinese coins. It examines how colonial powers used systems like measurement to control land and people in French Indochina (1887–1954, now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia).
The wooden forty-centimeter rulers, imposed by French authorities, combine metric and pre-colonial units once used in Vietnam. They are engraved with statistics, revealing how instruments of supposed neutrality can function as mechanisms of control. This highlights how standardization served as a tool of colonial authority.
Born in Vietnam and raised in Germany, Tieu connects political history with archival and personal narratives through a precise and minimalist practice.

The Ruling (The Banque de l'Indochine's Profits, 1875-1939), 2025, 47 cm and 40 cm rulers, two different woods, engraved, varnished, brackets, 4.35 x 1504 x 2.35 cm, Courtesy of the artist.

Untitiled, 2025, Print on paper, 10 x 18 cm, Courtesy of the artist.

Quôc Monopolô, 2024, 23 gas canisters filled with gasoline, 1 gas canister filled with medication, printed document, framed, 47 x 278 x 50 cm, Courtesy of the artist.

Anti-Trauma Walk, 2025, 40 x 40 cm anti-trauma rubber mats, French Indochinese coins, in 126 parts, 1680 x 120 cm, Courtesy of 69 Art Campus.