Floral Histories

Nathan Beard

Window Commission
Presented by Arts House

Wednesday 16 October 2024 – Thursday 16 January 2025

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Arts House exterior
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne

Visual Rating 100%

Wheelchair Accessible

Floral Histories continues Nathan Beard’s ongoing project examining the slippery nature of identity, and the fraught nature of ‘Thainess’ as he perceives it through his Australian-Thai heritage.

A series of floral portals, modelled loosely after offerings used in Thai ceremony, hover over mountainous Thai landscapes and a cascade of Thai references.

The portals are made from collages of Thai orchards, the national flower of Thailand, referencing their use in the signage and graphics of Thai-operated businesses – such as restaurants, nail salons and massage parlours – which frequently use stock images of this national symbol as a marker of authenticity.

In this playful series, Beard has drawn from several years of creating images and gathering research across a range of residencies to explore the porousness of cultural character and the significance or inherent value of cultural objects.

Floral Histories

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About the artist

Nathan Beard is a multidisciplinary artist who draws from his Australian-Thai heritage to unpack the porous nature of culture and memory. In exploring associations of ‘Thainess’ through archives, family history and popular media, Beard’s work reveals the slippery range of influences which shape identity.

Recent exhibition highlights include A Moment in Extended Crisis, UTS Gallery (2024) and A Puzzlement, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (2023) and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (2022). He is currently participating in the Gertrude Studio Program (2023-25). He is represented by sweet pea, Boorloo/Perth, and FUTURES, Naarm/Melbourne.

Artist statement

Inspired by my Australian-Thai cultural heritage, this sequence of collaged images draws from various archival sources to draw attention to the slippery range of influences which might shape a sense of cultural identity. Photographs are drawn from my own catalogue of images taken in my maternal family’s home province of Nakhon Nayok, photographs taken of Thai orchids grown in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, museum catalogues of Thai artefacts, and botanic and ethnographic archives from the Kew Gardens library. These are juxtaposed with 3D imagery of Thai sculpture from various collections, including the British Museum, as well as of Buddhist statues and toys belonging to my family. Cumulatively, through its incorporation of the lowbrow alongside the museological, this jumble of references looks to destabilise hierarchical associations of worth and value which might normally ascribe authenticity or meaning to a cultural object. The idea of ‘Thainess’ is depicted as a porous concept through this playful assembly of references, their floral portals loosely inspired by the form of floral arrangements used in traditional ceremonies or offerings.