Kath Fries

Kath’s practice involves finding sensory ways of reconnecting with our material and immaterial surroundings. She considers her creative process to be co-creative, as it is tactile and material-lead, working with natural, growing, changing materials. The quiet attentiveness of these processes evolves into a fluid conversation between the materials, herself, time and place. In this way, Kath’s work evokes poetic material metaphors, which extend into empathetic understandings of interconnectedness. By developing playful sensory encounters and relationships in the work, different perspectives about our ecological interdependencies unfold, challenging ingrained assumptions of human dominance and disconnection. On a foundational level her creative practice is informed by mindfulness and meditation practices, embedded in Buddhist philosophies of impermanence, interconnection, and compassion. These understandings about our entangled existence focus creative engagements with layered histories, complex biodiversity, sentient matter-flow, circular system-thinking, and embodied experiences.

A refuge is a place of safety and shelter. These bamboo and rope ladders conjure childhood memories of playing in trees, safely out of reach of adults. But they are not for climbing; instead these structures offer refuge to insects, housing spaces for solitary native bees to nest. Kath is fascinated by insects and their importance in sustaining biodiverse ecologies, but worldwide the insect biomass is rapidly declining. Habitat regeneration is one counter measure; in this sense, ‘Refuge’ is a ‘bee hotel’. It is also a refuge for our reflection on our complex biodiverse relationships, mindfully being present with the vibrant sentience of our surroundings. Thank you to Claire Carpenter, Aryadharma Matheson, Terry Burrows, Kandos Crop and Swap, the Mudgee Bee Project and WEAVE Parramatta, a program of Parramatta Artists’ Studios