COCONUTS HOTSPOT – Few things can be said to be universal, but there is one rite of passage that all children, from Azerbaijan to Zaire must go through – having the bejeezus scared out of them by an older relative as they are ingratiated into the world of ghost stories. For Australian-Thai artist, Nathan Beard, who is currently undertaking an artist’s residency at Bangkok’s Speedy Grandma gallery, the commonality of the ghost story is grounds to explore cultural identity and personal narratives of memory and family, as he traces ghost stories told to him by his Thai mother, in her garden in Perth, back to her family home in Nhakon Nayok.
“In a western setting, hauntings aren’t taken seriously, but to my Mum’s generation, they grew up with an awareness of these stories,” Beard told Coconuts. The work germinated from conversations about long-haired, bright-lipped water spirits that lure unsuspecting tourists to their death, and of how his own grandfather – a renowned spirit wrangler – had performed a ritual to shoo away a ghost that haunted his mother as a baby.
Beard, an interdisciplinary artist, who works across mediums aims to produce bodies of work that show off Thailand and Australia. The works will see a continuation of his visual style, that playfully finds a meeting point between East and West – previous works have seen Beard juxtapose visuals of Thai shrines with references to Tina Turner, or the opulence of Thai headdresses against the pared back sleekness of men’s suits.
[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”18704″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”400″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”600″}}]]
For the current works in progress Beard says, “I want to take influence from high fashion and kitsch visual culture. I want to use that camp, melodramatic visual language borrowed from Thai street culture and shrines, but hybridise it with high fashion – designer ponchos, crystal face masks.”
For Beard, the personal element that underlies wider discussions of identity politics in a globalized world, is the major driver of the work.
“What’s overwhelming this investigation at the moment is the fact that my mother is getting older. It is about trying to use my practice to preserve memory and create these personal spaces I can visit later on,” he said.
“I’ve always been aware of this stigma of “otherness” coming from a half Asian background. My mother was the “cute”, “interesting” mother. And we use that as a point of difference – like, yeah, I’m different and I’m empowered by it, but there were real differences, like if friends came over in high school, and we’d get woken up at four in the morning because my mother’s boiling and chopping chickens to take to temple.
“I want to create a niche, where I can explore those issues [of multiculturalism and mixed identities] but impart something more personal, to try and find that common ground between my personal interests and how they fit into a Thai culture of hybridity.”
Preliminary works will go on display on at Speedy Grandma from August 16.
Speedy Grandma
672/50-52 Soi Charoenkrung 28
Bangrak Bangrak, Bangkok, Thailand 10500
