Jacob Nash

Jacob Nash is a First Nations artist, designer and creative director whose practice spans public art, theatre, film and photography. His multidisciplinary practice creates powerful visual languages that speak to shared histories, place and contemporary First Nations perspectives.

His ancestral Country on his mother’s side is in the Daly River, and he also has Chinese and Malay heritage. On his father’s side, he has Scottish ancestry. Nash has spent more than two decades living and working on Eora Country in Sydney. In recent years, Nash has been commissioned for a number of major public artworks across Sydney, including Lines on Country at Wunderlich Lane.

The project was initiated through a comprehensive Public Art Strategy developed by UAP for TOGA Group, establishing a clear curatorial and planning framework for the precinct. UAP authored the artwork brief and managed a curated concept design competition, from which Nash was selected, before working closely with the artist to refine the concept and progress the artwork through technical design, fabrication and delivery.

Titled Modern Tradelines: Creating Common Grounds for Exchange and Play, the curatorial framework positions Wunderlich Lane in the Surry Hills precinct as a site of movement, connection and cultural exchange. Drawing on the long history of trade as a conduit for ideas, people and culture - particularly Indigenous tradelines - the framework is structured around three thematic drivers: Tradelines & Exchange, Common Grounds, and Play, guiding the development of site-responsive artworks across the precinct.

Nash’s artwork responds directly to this framework and the site’s layered history. Through suspended sculptural forms and embedded ground inlays, the work centres on knowledge, country and continuity, inviting visitors to recognise the enduring presence of First Nations knowledge systems within the everyday rhythms of the precinct.

The artwork was realised through a hybrid making process that combined advanced digital technologies with hands-on, craft-based production. Initial forms were developed using 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry, before shifting into tactile modes of making. Nash was closely involved throughout, working with UAP to refine the forms through traditional pattern-making and sculpting techniques, ensuring variation, texture and a strong sense of touch.

The sculptural elements were cast in aluminium using sand-bed moulds and hand-finished to retain surface detail and material presence. Twenty suspended elements are arranged along a catenary system designed to create rhythm and movement without repetition, with integrated LED lighting providing a subtle night-time presence. Tilt Industrial Design were engaged by the client to design and engineer the suspension system. UAP fabricated the sculptural elements and ground inlays and supplied these to Tilt, who undertook the installation of the artwork.

Artwork by Jacob Nash, commissioned by TOGA Group, with Public Art Strategy, and curated concept design competition, technical design and fabrication by UAP, and suspension system engineering and installation by Tilt Industrial Design.