Kath Fries Studio: 'Liquesce' screened in Reinvention Festival NYC

Reinvention Festival - Kath Fries logo

I'm thrilled that my video Liquesce, was exhibited in Reinvention Festival 2013 NYC in Manhattan. This is the first time that my work has been shown outside Australia.

I would like to thank Clay Paula, curator of the Reinvention Festival Video Lounge, for inviting me to include this work; and Peter Cramer for helping me produce Liquesce earlier in the year.

Kath Fries, Liquesce, 2013, still from video

Liquesce reflects the passage of time and a sense of impending loss. The transient imagery of beeswax melting in real time, challenges the viewer’s patience and commitment to watching the work gently unfold, as the wax gradually begins to glisten and then slowly melt, disintegrating into a liquid seepage. Liquesce documents these fragile cyclic transitions to form a metaphor about how we perceive and respond to experiences of life and death, as individuals and as part of the wider world.

Kath Fries, Liquesce screening at Reinvention Festival NYC, 2013

I am currently working with beeswax as a key material in many of my artworks. My use of beeswax began as tangible engagement with its tactility, malleability, adhesiveness, translucency and flux; but is now also informed by the alarming worldwide increase in mass deaths amongst domesticated honeybee populations, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Although we rely on domesticated honeybees to pollinate one third of all food crops globally, this epidemic is mainly caused by use of nemonic pesticides in the agricultural industry. My awareness of CCD adds another layer of meaning to my use of beeswax, considering how we are undermining our fragile relationships with bees regardless of their integral connection to our very survival.