Kate Liston was one of the ENTWINED: Rural. Land. Lives. Art. associated artists, spending time at Highgreen during 2020–2021 and producing the film Parasite, which was exhibited as part of the final exhibitions. Based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Kate works across moving image, installation, writing, and performance, creating environments where language, material, and place intersect. Her practice uses repetition, echo, and spatial illusion to explore how meanings are processed and how different forms – sculptural, linguistic, ecological – can host one another.
Kate’s projects often evolve from direct engagement with specific sites. She treats the limitations and conditions of these contexts as starting points for speculative world-making, using installation and film to create immersive spaces that invite audiences to dwell, listen, and reflect. Her work combines sculpture, sound, and text in layered installations that are sometimes activated through live events or readings, extending her interest in the porous boundary between artwork, site, and experience.
For ENTWINED, Kate was drawn to the Highgreen landscape for its visible evidence of human intervention in the natural environment. Her research examined the complex relationships between human and nonhuman agencies, land stewardship, and ecological interdependence. She also reflected on the history of VARC as an organisation hosting artists within this environment, considering the legacy and future of creative practice embedded in place.
Central to her residency was an investigation into the ecology of ticks, which became both subject and metaphor within her work. Kate was intrigued by their dual role as host and parasite, and by how they connect species across ecosystems, acting as indicators of environmental health. Her engagement with Forestry Commission staff, who shared field experiences and local knowledge, informed her thinking about entanglement, coexistence, and transmission – biological, ecological, and conceptual.
These ideas culminated in the film Parasite, shot on standard 8mm film and incorporating written text. The work explores how thought and language can become intertwined with material and ecological processes, suggesting that our inner and outer worlds are continuously shaped by one another. Alongside the film, Kate contributed the text Spiralling to the ENTWINED publication, extending her reflections through writing.
Kate is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Northumbria University and holds a practice-led PhD. Her recent exhibitions include Feel After the New See (Hatton Gallery, 2018) and The Scientific Method (The Tetley, 2016). Her residency at VARC continues her exploration of how art, ecology, and language interconnect, revealing the intricate dependencies that structure both human and nonhuman life.
