Sung Tieu: Art Diversifies KW Institute Board

Sung Tieu's art 'Declaration of Donation' funds Mi You's KW Institute board seat, challenging exclusionary practices and promoting diversity through infrastructural shifts.

The KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin has appointed the curator and academic Mi You to its board complying with the sale of Sung Tieu’s job Declaration of Donation (2025 ). According to the work’s own guidelines, it was cost EUR25,000, covering the cost of a five-year term for You, that was chosen by Tieu to the position.

Tieu’s Critique of KW’s Structure

Tieu’s job contains a contract inscribed onto 4 A4-sized mirrors. It criticises the KW’s board structure, which charges a EUR5,000 annual cost from each member. The cost is a vital earnings stream for the establishment, currently under stress as Berlin cuts arts financing, however likewise hinders diversity in the administration of the city’s social organisations in which “heritages of exemption and economic gatekeeping” linger.

Exclusion from Memorial Competition

It hung alongside similar items regarding Tieu’s exclusion from a memorial design competitors for Nguyễn Văn Tú, an agreement worker from Vietnam that pertained to East Berlin in 1987 and was killed by reactionary teams in 1992. In 2023, Tieu was welcomed to take part in the competition, however after criticising the absence of involvement of the Vietnamese community, she was ultimately invalidated by the court by breaching the competition’s terms– leaving the Vietnamese neighborhood entirely left out from the process.

Vietnamese Workers in Germany

Tieu’s technique utilizes textual and archival product to unload the place of Vietnamese individuals in Germany, especially in connection with the GDR, which brought 60,000 Vietnamese contract employees from “brotherly states” like Vietnam to fill work scarcities, yet rejected them full legal rights.

The agreement states that the item’s sale will utilize funds from the exclusive art market to branch out KW’s board, proclaiming that “institutions evolve not with statements of inclusivity but through shifts in facilities”.