Working across, performance, sculpture, social practice and institutional critique, Jack Ky Tan artistic practice is an ongoing exploration of social justice that blurs the boundaries between, art, law, governance, and consultancy. Interrogating the legacies of colonialism with a particular interest in the South and South East Asian diaspora, Tan looks toward alternative cosmologies and knowledge systems that predate the Judaeo-Christian and colonial narratives. Questioning these embedded structures in our society and economies, which form our laws and guide our behaviour, his work attempts to rethink our entanglement with the human and non-human world and look towards alternative ways of living and working.
Jack trained as a lawyer and sociologist, working in civil rights NGOs before studying ceramics at the University Westminster (Harrow) and the Royal College of Art. Jack’s practice-led PhD at Roehampton University explored legal aesthetics and performance art. He has taught MA Sculpture at the Royal College of Art and University of Brighton, and MA Politics & Art at Goldsmiths.