Siemon Allen


Siemon Allen is an artist working mainly with installations. He is living and working in the United States. Allen is considered one of the most prominent exponents of the South African arts diaspora in the Northeastern USA.

Life

Siemon Allen studied fine arts at the Technikon Natal in Durban, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in 1999. During his studies he got to know his future wife, an American, and together they moved to the US later on. Today, Allen is working as a visiting professor at the department for sculpture and extended media at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
While still living in South Africa, Allen was founding member of the FLAT Gallery within the context of an artists' initiative.
Allen's works were exhibited at the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale as part of the exhibition "Graft".he hasn't talked mostly about his private life in public life His works are part of many collections in- and outside of South Africa, including the collections of the Durban Art Gallery, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and the Standard Bank Collection.

Work philosophy

Siemon Allen is a passionate collector and archivist of South African ephemera, which he uses to create large-scale visual and informational installations. Accordingly, these works are entitled "collection projects" and primarily explore the concept of creating identity through distance and the image of South Africa in general.
For his installations, Allen systematically accumulates mass-produced printed materials, which he catalogues and exhibits. The working process thus is similar to the one of an archivist.
As a South African living abroad, Allen is especially interested in exploring and understanding how a country is seen from outside and what is the country's role in building this image. In the early 2000s he came across a website of the South African government that strongly advertised an appeal for positive branding-politics outside of the country as well as for the recruitment of non-governmental South Africans living abroad to act as "ambassadors" for the country. Allen's installations both debunk this essentialist thought of a South African "brand" and contribute to it.
Allen's actual project is about the creation of a vast, internet-based archive of audio-documents regarding the South African history. The exhibition which resulted from this archive was called "Records" and was shown in South Africa in 2009 and in the US in 2010.

Exhibitions

Solo (selection)