Kath Fries Studio: Occupied - group exhibition BMCC

As Covid19 lockdowns ease in Sydney, the galleries begin to reopen and we’re allowed to travel more freely; I'm delighted to have my participatory work Hive Drawing included in the group exhibition 'Occupied', at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. This exhibition of expanded drawing forms a timely reflection on how we engage with – and feel about – the built environments that we occupy on a daily basis.

I started Hive Drawing last year, under very different circumstances pre-Covid19, as part of a 'Super Organism' project with Penelope Cain and Barbara Doran. Then and now, visitors are invited to contribute to the circular patterning, like honeybees building a layer of honeycomb together in the hive. Honeybees are social insects and they live interdependently with each other, this process of working collaboratively is reflected in Hive Drawing – building on the hand-traced circles of your neighbour – and opens up ways of considering how we live together with each other and other beings.

"... Hive Drawing is a participatory collective drawing reflecting community connections. Each participant is asked to place their hand on the drawing next to an existing circle and draw around it with a beeswax crayon, then dust the circle with turmeric. The result is a collection of golden circles – just touching – collectively creating a drawn expanse of honeycomb. Since social distancing this work takes on new meaning – physical connection is risky and yet incredibly desirable, with a constant balance of risk and judgement ..." - Rilka Oakley, extract from 'Occupied' exhibition essay

Coming out of Covid19 isolation, Hive Drawing invites us to consider how our built environments are social spaces, even the places we consider ‘private’ exist because other people helped build them and lived here before us. What does it mean now to be social and an active member of society? We are at a pivotal point in social history; locally and globally calls for social justice and equality ring out, we need to visualise a better future and find more creative and diverse ways of understanding what this means.

“… We are individuals first, yes, just as bees are, but we exist in a larger social body. Society is not only real; it’s fundamental. We can’t live without it. And now we’re beginning to understand that this ‘we’ includes many other creatures and societies in our biosphere and even in ourselves … although we are practicing social distancing as we need to, we want to be social—we not only want to be social, we’ve got to be social, if we are to survive. It’s a new feeling, this alienation and solidarity at once. It’s the reality of the social; it’s seeing the tangible existence of a society of strangers, all of whom depend on one another to survive ... ” - Kim Stanley Robinson

‘Occupied’ is curated by Rilka Oakley and features work by Susanna Castleden, Clare Delaney, Kath Fries, Karen Golland, Jody Graham, Virginia Hilyard & Sue Pedley, Catherine O’Donnell, Mollie Rice, Margaret Roberts, Wendy Tsai and Rebecca Waterstone. Through the medium of expanded drawing, ‘Occupied’ examines the artists’ and the viewers’ experience of physical space – the architecture that surrounds us, street scapes, interior and exterior spaces we inhabit and the intersection between the built and natural environment. Scale, texture, tone and different methods of mark making are the primary focus. Making marks is an essential process to many artists and this exhibition explores the raw, tangible nature of drawing.

Occupied

2 June - 5 July 2020

Blue Mountains City Art Gallery - Blue Mountains Cultural Centre

30 Parke St, Katoomba NSW bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au

Darug and Gundungurra Country

Please note that due to social distancing restrictions there will not be an opening event for the exhibition or artist talks.