Schering Stiftung Award for Artistic Research 2024: Sung Tieu

In her new body of work, 1992, 2025, Tieu deepens her ongoing critical engagement with the 1980 recruitment agreement between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which led to the migration of approximately 60,000 Vietnamese contract workers to the GDR during the 1980s. While previous exhibitions focused on the living and working conditions of these workers up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, this exhibition shifts its lens to the far-reaching consequences of the GDR’s collapse. Through a series of newly commissioned works and an accompanying publication, Tieu investigates how the political and social upheavals, along with the pervasive racialized structures and discrimination of that era, have impacted the identities, roles, and social networks of the Vietnamese community in Germany—and continue to shape them to this day.

Spanning two floors, the exhibition reflects the two distinct historical moments brought into focus in its title, which serve as central points of reference for Tieu. However, the opening between the floors establishes a connection between the two levels—and, by extension, between both years. This floor is dedicated to 1992—the year Tieu arrived in Germany.

With Germany’s reunification, many of the GDR’s former contract workers and their families were left exposed, facing legal and social uncertainty. The sudden termination of their employment contracts—following the closure of numerous state-owned enterprises—not only stripped them of their livelihoods but also jeopardized the very basis of their residency status. Bound to a system that had previously exploited them as an economic resource, they found themselves entangled in a web of bureaucratic obstacles and existential insecurity. Faced with these challenges, many former contract workers were forced to develop informal survival strategies, which were less an expression of choice than a response to the necessity of operating within a legal gray area. These strategies included selling untaxed cigarettes, textiles, or foodstuffs like fruit, vegetables, and flowers—often without proper permits. These activities not only constituted a precarious means of survival but also made the criminalized vendors highly visible in public spaces. Tieu’s mother was one of them.

Tieu’s screen prints of archival photographs on metal plates show the exchange and handling of goods, emphasizing both their everyday nature through repeating motifs and their role within legally ambiguous frameworks. Through these works, the artist highlights the traces and lasting impact of these experiences, shaped by a struggle for survival. By examining the ambiguities of German “reunification,” Tieu points to the stark contrast between the alluring promises of unity and equality and the reality in which these ideals remained out of reach for many.

The year 1992 was marked by a wave of far-right violence that spread across Germany. Many incidents were exacerbated by the actions—and failures—of state institutions, including the police. To this day, some attacks, such as those in Rostock-Lichtenhagen—where the police hardly intervened—remain among the most severe racist and xenophobic pogroms in Germany since World War II. At the center of the exhibition space, tailor mannequins wear suits made from fabric imprinted with newspaper articles from Tieu’s archive. These articles document the racially motivated attacks of the 1990s, offering a glimpse into the public perception of the Vietnamese community at the time. Through their placement, the sculptures quite literally bear the weight of this history on their shoulders, making the violence poignantly visible.

The theme of transience runs throughout the exhibition in multiple ways. In the opening between the levels, an ensemble of quintessential GDR furniture is suspended in midair, creating an ambiguous in-between space. Many contract workers in the GDR were employed in furniture manufacturing. Floating in a dreamlike state, this haunting landscape of household furniture—collected by Tieu through classified ads in preparation for the exhibition— evokes the lingering reverberations of historical processes into the present. At the same time, it serves as a poignant symbol of the unfulfilled desire for a safe home—a place of stability that remained out of reach.

In Cultural Appropriation (in the GDR), Tieu examines the international entanglements of the GDR’s economy by showcasing so-called „oriental“ carpets produced in East Germany. These machine-made carpets were in high demand on international markets—both in the West and the Middle East. State-owned enterprises profited from the GDR’s relatively low labor costs, producing these carpets cheaply in contrast to the handwoven originals they sought to imitate, while capitalizing from their exoticized appeal. As a lucrative export, they exemplified the appropriation of foreign aesthetic traditions for national economic gain. Tieu’s carpet installation highlights the contradictions of a system that economically exploited other cultures, while simultaneously denying social inclusion to the very people from the so-called “brother countries,” who were made to work in its service.

On the exhibition’s second floor, dedicated to the year 2025, historical and contemporary narratives converge. Five cast-aluminum square bars reference the length of a Berliner Elle, or ell—a historical unit of measurement in Prussia. They are affixed to pillars asserting their presence and quite literally “elbowing their way through” the space, marking social distance. These markers of enforced standardization physically and metaphorically anchor the exhibition within the architecture of KW. The KW building, situated in former East Berlin operated as a margarine factory in the GDR era. Today, it is part of a central, gentrified neighborhood. Tieu transforms the site into a space of interrogation, reflecting on past structures and practices which continue to affect the present. The “outstretched elbows” that dictate spatial interactions also underscore the physical and symbolic power of such units of measurement, which define orders and cement hierarchies. Opposite, the wall-mounted stools evoke the atmosphere of a waiting room—a liminal space of uncertainty and transience, where transformation is alluded to but not yet completed.

The eventful years following German reunification also shape this floor. At its center is a letter addressing the complexities of remembering Nguyễn Văn Tú, a young man and former contract worker who tragically lost his life in Berlin-Marzahn in 1992—one of the first killings during the post-1989 years to be officially classified as far-right violence. His death caused widespread shock and unrest within the Vietnamese community and garnered significant media attention across Germany. In 2023, thirty-one years later, Tieu was invited, along with two German artists, to develop a memorial sign in his honor. As the only artist with a Vietnamese and migrant background, she criticized the process, which failed to meaningfully involve the Vietnamese community. Her suggestion to expand the list of invited artists to include additional Vietnamese-German artistic perspectives was rejected. After submitting a written critique of the jury and proposing improvements—developed collaboratively with six other artists, activists, social workers, researchers, and curators from her community—she was disqualified from the competition for violating procedural and anonymity rules, according to the jury.* Ultimately, the memorial was realized by a German artist and inaugurated in late 2023. During the unveiling, Tieu and her collaborators organized a silent protest. In the exhibition, engraved texts on polished stainless steel document these events and open the space for critical engagement.

These experiences led Tieu to question the structural mechanisms of exclusion and the lack of transparency in institutional processes. As part of these reflections, she turned her attention toward the composition of KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e. V., the support association of KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Seeking to foster greater inclusivity, she proposed measures to the board that aimed at expanding the spectrum of voices and perspectives within the association.

Against this backdrop, Tieu developed a conceptual artwork whose proceeds, when sold, are intended to fund a five-year membership for a new board member she would like to nominate. This membership is set to run concurrently with the five-year term of KW’s current director, Emma Enderby. The executive board has pledged to accept Tieu’s proposal. In doing so, Tieu’s work distinguishes the 5,000 Euro annual fee from the membership itself, an intervention that enables board participation regardless of socio-economic backgrounds and barriers. This new position seeks to constructively expand the discursive scope of the association’s meetings. As these internal structural changes continue to unfold, both the exhibition and the accompanying publication point to the potential transformations that may emerge in the uncertain course of 2025.


*Tieu’s six collaborators are: Bích Ngọc Lưu, Dr. Kimiko Suda, Duc Pham, Mara Hornemann, Nam Nguyen and Quang Nguyễn-Xuân

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Sung Tieu is the recipient of the Schering Stiftung Award for Artistic Research 2024, which has been awarded jointly with the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion since 2020. In addition to prize money, the award covers an exhibition that encompasses the production of new works as well as a publication (scheduled to be released in April 2025).