Born 1975, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Lives and works in Kuala Lumpur

Chong Kim Chiew’s practice focuses on the idea of the nation as an ideological, political and aesthetic construct. His ongoing Boundary Fluidity project comprises elements such as giant maps on tarpaulin that compulsively reorient the geographic and political topography of Malaysia and its South-East Asian neighbours; and reconstructions of historical banknotes from past and present ruling structures in Malaysia, created from strips of tape applied either directly to the wall or to canvas.

In both bodies of work, Chong deconstructs graphic representations of the idea of nation, inviting consideration of their historical, metaphorical and speculative aspects. These works introduce a sense of transience into the edifice of the nation-state: territory becomes an aesthetic and political fiction that is anything but eternal, suggesting that the control of geographies and populations is temporal, and that representations of power — be they maps, currency, flags or other symbols — might well outlast the power itself.