In Microwave (2000), Tan films a blonde Barbie doll rotating inside a microwave in a single, unedited take. The domestic setup becomes a tight, self-contained theatre as the plastic body slowly warps and melts, while the fixed smile remains eerily intact. Made during her first period living in the United States, the work turns an American icon into a charged, unsettling image.Microwave signals Tan’s early method of making rigorously structured work within limited means. Working from an everyday domestic setting, she treats the home as both set and subject, testing how narrative force can be generated through constraint, one location, one shot, minimal resources, and the disciplined unfolding of time.As part of a wider series that “microwaves” American icons, the work opens Tan’s enduring inquiry into identity, power, and representation. It is also among her most widely circulated pieces, and can be mobilised across curatorial frames that include race, gender politics, pop culture, activism, and experiments in narrative form.