Kathryn Parsons is a visual artist based on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens. Her work explores place, nature and local histories, including habitat restoration and belonging.
Kathryn is fascinated by human relationships to the land and with nature. Storytelling is a favourite medium and for her project-based approach, she researches through reading, walking, photography and conversation. And she selects materials that best tell the story, preferring hand-made, low-impact processes. Often working with environmental organisations and museums, she creates artworks that weave together rich layers of research and meaning. Her aim is to invite greater awareness and care for biodiversity and environment.
As Langdyke Countryside Trust Artist In Residence, Kathryn Parsons has spent three years, from 2022-4, researching the botany and social history of a forgotten flood-meadow. Her project there has included using natural dyeing to track micro-seasonal changes.
For the 2023 GroundWork Residency, The Ground Beneath Our Feet, her focus was on the impacts of farming sugar beet on Norfolk’s peat soils and historic fen drainage. Appropriately, she used sugar modelling pastes and chlorophyll prints on sugar beet leaves to tell the stories.
Ecology of the Wash
“I’m currently working with four other GroundWork NetWork artists, raising awareness of threats to the ecology of the Wash – my Evolution Fable with accompanying miniature hybrid sculptures was created for a GroundWork event at Holme Dunes for the 2024 artists in residence.”
“Being part of the GroundWork NetWork means being able to continue working with an awesome gallery and group of people who also care deeply about the environment and are working for positive change. I greatly value that and contributing to a significant and increasingly powerful network of like-minded others.
“And as research is key for my practice, opportunities for conversations with ecologists, farmers and others is hugely helpful. I hope that being part of the NetWork will bring opportunities for future collaborations too, where our voices are amplified and more change is made possible.”
