Stone & Story: Collecting/Sharing
Kate Shields: Making Space
As part of their Making Space residency, artist Kate Shields will work with participants to construct a temporary stone circle within Fabrica—a gesture of collective effort and a reflection on the ancient significance of these enigmatic structures. The stone circle will serve as a space for gathering, conversation, and group drawing, culminating in a deeper appreciation of collaboration as a creative act.
Throughout the week, each stone and its story will be catalogued, documented, and 3D-scanned, inspired by methods used in archaeology. These digital models will allow the stone circle to exist online, preserving the collective creation for the future. This process aims to unearth shared narratives while celebrating the stone circle as a symbol of connection, ritual, and sacred space.
What to Expect:
- Bring Your Story: Share the tale behind your stone, contributing it to the pop-up circle and a collective archive of personal and local histories.
- Sacred Space: Reflect, draw, and converse within the newly created circle, deepening the connections between participants, stories, and shared spaces.
Why Stone Circles?
The artist’s research explores the enduring mystery of stone circles as ancient symbols of collaboration and congregation. Built through collective effort, these prehistoric sites inspire questions about purpose, community, and meaning. Sussex, though it lacks its own ancient stone circles, offers a rich landscape of folklore and shared history, ready to be reimagined.
Why Fabrica?
As a former church and current site of community and creativity, Fabrica provides the perfect setting for this project. Its layered history mirrors the themes of collaboration, sacred space, and transformation explored through this residency.
This event is open to all—whether you’d like to bring a stone, or join in the conversation. Together, we will build, document, and reimagine how we connect through art, history, and shared space.
About The Artist
Kate Shields’ practice is deeply informed by diverse lived experiences, which translate into tactile material choices and immersive world-building. Rooted in queer aesthetics and culture, her work seeks to escape normative identities and express lived experiences of embodiment through digital-physical imaging and mixed media worlds. These works explore the desire to survive, process, and move forward.
Since COVID-19, this desire has fluctuated between non-existent and overwhelming, leading her practice to increasingly reflect her experiences as a disabled, queer person. Her current focus is on making her work more sustainable, collaborative, and healing during divisive and challenging times—for both herself and her audiences.
Since 2020, Kate has undertaken three research residencies, including one at the University of Sussex, where she developed GUTS (The Enchanted Forest), a digital installation informed by her lived experience of the chronic health condition Ulcerative Colitis. The work was shown at Lighthouse in 2022. In 2023, funding from Arts Council England enabled her to learn new digital skills, receive mentorship, and dedicate time in the studio to developing new ideas.
Artist Residencies
This Making Space residency represents a step toward embedding community engagement into Kate's creative practice long-term. It also allows them to explore making more space for connection, collective world-building, and synchronicity within their artistic process.
You are welcome to drop in at any stage, and stay for as long as you wish
Fabrica
40 Duke Street, Brighton
BN1 1AG
