TILBURG.- The internationally prize-winning artist Fiona Tan (Indonesia, 1966) is a good friend of De Pont, where she had her first major exhibition in the Netherlands in 2003. Today the collection includes a broad range of her work. For her second exhibition in Tilburg, the museum's recently opened new wing has been transformed into an immersive audiovisual installation.

On view here is Ascent, which Tan made at the request of the Izu Photo Museum in Shizuoka, Japan. The two-part installation is exhibited in the Netherlands for the first time.

Ascent has been conceived as a montage consisting of more than 4000 exceptional and diverse photographs of Mount Fuji, submitted by the public and selected from the collection of the Izu Photo Museum.

No other mountain has been photographed as often as Mount Fuji: from all sides, from a close proximity, from a distance, from above, at every moment of the day and in all seasons. Venerated as a god and used as a symbol of the nation-state of Japan, this volcano has mythical meaning.

Mount Fuji is an icon as well as a cliché, in roughly the same way that windmills and wooden shoes have this status with respect to the Netherlands. Ascent is a reflection on this mountain that has such great significance to the Japanese, but also a study of its visual culture and a tribute to the history of both photography and film.

Fictional narrative combines with documentary images, expanding the boundaries that divide stillness from movement, and pinpointing a unique area where photography and film meet and connect. She thereby reveals a unique realm in which photography and film come together and interrelate. The story, resounding with the climb to the top of the mountain, alternates between narration and history, from Western imperialism to modern tourism, from the early days of photography to the present day. In addition to the film, the exhibition at De Pont includes two other video installations and works on paper connected to these. The Changeling (2006) and Depot (2015) likewise balance on the borderline between still and moving images.