I investigate historical objects, architecture, or events which are ‘contested’ in some way. My work arises from lingering questions, unknown details, or absences in the historical record, and is best positioned at the fraying edges of ‘enlightenment’ legacies.
Through a broad range of media I make work about the structures of institutions. I’m drawn to esoteric events and symbols which have “legitimate” historical or scientific faces, as well as hidden, conspiratorial, or speculative aspects.
Using splintering and contradictory arrangements of historical records, folklore, literature, and contemporary media, I make objects to describe an ‘inverted form’ of orthodox knowing. Through this inversion I want to reassess assumed or ‘common’ knowledges, and examine intellectual legacies which otherwise pass uncontested.
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Ash Tower (he/him) is an artist and researcher now working on Whadjuk country, Western Australia. He is a Samstag Scholar (2024-25), a Churchie Emerging Art Prize Finalist (2023), and an ACE Studio Resident (2022). He recently returned from a fellowship at the British School at Rome, and he has exhibited internationally, notably in Italy and Japan. He currently teaches at Curtin University.