Charles River Editors, ISW – The Battle for Ancient Palmyra

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Charles River Editors, ISW – The Battle for Ancient Palmyra

Artist Tiffany Chung Vietnamese-American, born 1969

Date2018

Dimensions38 × 24 3/4 in.

MediumAcrylic, ink, and oil on vellum and paper

ClassificationDrawings

Credit LineWilliam J. Hitchcock Fund in memory of Grace J. Hitchcock

Object number

2019.28

Not on View

Exhibition HistoryMiami Beach, Art Basel Miami Beach–Tyler Rollins Fine Art, December 6-9, 2018.Label TextTiffany Chung is a multi-media artist noted for her cartographic drawings and installations that examine conflict, migration, and shifting geographies in relation to history and cultural memory. The Battle for Ancient Palmyra compares present-day attacks and the violence inflicted on the ancient city of Palmyra by various factions, including the terrorist group ISIS/ISIL and Russian-backed Syrian government forces, to the city’s pre-Syrian Civil War configuration. Using information gathered from e-book publisher Charles River Editions and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in Washington, DC, Chung renders two meticulously detailed, map-like diagrams that record both the effects of the ongoing Syrian conflict upon the city and its surrounding area (above) and the impact of historical campaigns on the ancient city (below). The dazzling clusters of jewel-like dots that Chung layers over her topographic design record the location of each human injury and the destruction of cultural monuments, such as tombs like the one from which the nearby Funerary Monument of Umm’abi came. The Battle for Ancient Palmyra belongs to Chung’s highly regarded, ongoing project that examines the traumatic impacts of forced migration and displacement of peoples around the globe, which developed out of her study of the post-1975 mass exodus of Vietnamese refugees, of which she herself was a part.