Kate Sim Read

Creative Potrtfolio

About Me

I am a recent graduate of Theatre and Performance (BA) from the University of Bristol. I specialize in creative direction for performance projects and performativity studies. I am particularly interested in the porous boundary between life and performance and focus a lot of my work on post-dramatism.

I have worked in various cultural institutions including Bristol Old Vic on the New Work and Producing Teams and am currently working as Marketing and Engagement Manager at Bristol Ideas.

I have experience in film photography as well as other fine art practises.

Performance Work

New Materialism

(2023)

New Materialism was my Graduate performance. It focuses on the concept of object agency from individual perspectives. My practice focused on the ways in which objects facilitate movement and rest. Our show featured an exhibition space with drawings, prototypes, short films and a soundscape before the audience was invited into the site-specific workshop space, where we further looked at the construction and connotations of objects.

We'll Keep You Watching (2022)

We'll Keep you Watching is a site-specific and immersive performance interrogating the construction of fantasy in internet pornography. It uses a post-dramatic lens to question modes of spectatorship and how the changing context of viewing practices can effect para-social relationships. We used live AV feeds to create screen content from the adjacent room to create an uncanny effect when the actor entered the live audience space. I co-wrote and co-directed this work.

Blue Inkwell (2021)

Blue Inkwell is an out-of-space clowning piece for which I worked on the creative direction and costuming. We created intergalactic costumes with a homemade aesthetic to help answer the research question "How can Clowning Make and Break Worlds?"

Where the Wild Things Are (2021)

Where the Wild Things Are is a modern take on Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. We staged the performance on a catwalk, and transformed the characters into animals though costume and movement direction. Along with Violet Allmark, I worked on the creative direction with a specialism in costuming, including designing anf making all animal masks.

Lately I have been working more with wood, especially green wood. This is a picnic table that I recently build, using hand building techniques wherever possible.

Building Work (2023)

Sculptural Work (2021-23)

These are a series of sculptal forms constructed over the last few years. I am interested in the simplification of form through abstracting shapes and use of minimal variety in material.

Photography

Lovers in Gransee (2022)

YOYO (2022)

Nighttime in the Greenhouse (1) (2022)

Nighttime in the Greenhouse (2) (2022)

This photo series is shot in Gransee, a small East German town. I stayed with a community of people who were renovating an abandoned tree-factory and documented their lives over the month I was there.

Untitled (2021)

The Triangle (2022)

Glow (2022)

Will (2022)

Phineas (2022)

Flo (2022)

The above photos are from my Life of the Party series, a documentation of Bristol nightlife. I wanted to capture the effervescence of my friends in crowded rooms and on the journey home.

Left: Rosie (1) 2023, Above: Rosie (2) 2023

These photos are of the process of my flatmate shaving her head. I'm really interested in representations of domesticity and intimacy in my practice, and here I love the momentary insight the viewer gets into life in our flat.

Work

with Me