Low Yield Fruit is a new body of sculptural work inspired by the complex personal, cultural and colonial histories that expand from researching tropical fruits of Thailand.
","about":"Low Yield Fruit is a new body of sculptural work inspired by the complex personal, cultural and colonial histories that expand from researching tropical fruits of Thailand.
Low Yield Fruit will consist of detailed silicone casts of fruits exported from Thailand to Australia - including durians, mangos, mangosteens and jackfruits - alongside limes harvested from the artist’s late mother’s garden. These fleshy replicas will be spiked precariously on top of rigid steel frames and bronze forms enlarged from scanned details of hands and heads from family Buddhist shrine statues, accented with shimmering resin pools of juices. These totem-like forms conflate personal artefacts and cultural memory to unpack embedded layers of symbolic meaning.
The work considers broader ideas of ‘acquired taste’ through a tumble of references including ‘mango diaspora’ poetry; the potency of the fruit export industry to Thailand’s economy; sense memory of Thai fruits from Nathan’s childhood and his mother’s careful search for them in Australia; and Hannah Beech’s 2020 NY Times Op-Ed on Thailand’s native fruit that drew considerable ire for its dismissive approach of them being ‘low-yield’ given their exotic taste and the effort required to consume them. Combined with the awareness of ‘fruit’ as a gay slur, the work reclaims the potency inherent in the tropical subjects of in these reproductions with tenderness and humour.
This project has been made possible with the support of the Minderoo Foundation Artist Fund and the Australia Council.