An ongoing collection of physical objects and archival materials, personally collected and owned by the artist.
Tan Mu’s Atlas is an evolving research archive, working method, and knowledge system that underpins her long-term artistic practice. Comprising nearly 200 original items collected from around the world and dating from 1850 to the present, the archive includes maps, diagrams, government documents, advertisements, newspapers, magazines, books, images, stamps, envelopes, and other visual and historical materials.
Beyond collecting, Atlas provides a framework for observing, comparing, and transforming information across disciplines. Materials are dismantled, reorganized, abstracted, and translated into visual systems through painting and other forms of artistic inquiry. Each work becomes a partial map connecting different scales, temporalities, and modes of perception.
Encompassing technological, biological, and planetary systems—from submarine communication networks and data infrastructures to glaciers, scientific imaging, and cosmic observation—Atlas connects distinct fields of research while remaining open to new inquiries. Signal is one branch within this expanding structure, which continues to inform and connect Tan Mu’s evolving bodies of work.
Conceived as an atlas-in-progress, the project is both a material record of research and a cartography of thinking, sensing, and making.