P R E S S  R E LE A S E

seven rooms in seven houses, seven performers in seven shows 

Home Suite is a new site-specific promenade performance by the artist Kathryn Fry that uses domestic habit and routine to explore ideas of freedom and control.  

Commissioned by the Collective, a group of people who buy art jointly to display in their own homes, the work examines how we perceive time and ultimately how we might control it. 

In the performances, we watch as a chorus of seven identical females navigate spaces of domesticity on seven days, weaving a narrative arc that describes the evolution of a marriage, its bearing on romance and the effect of both on domestic routine and the role of a housewife.  

During the daily absence of the husband, the bloom of romance begins to fade as novelty is confronted by reality and adventure tends to the tedious. Whether to recapture or to forget that which is felt to be slipping away, Home Suite’s characters turn to a new relationship. The home becomes their primary focus, offering its own form of romance, its comforts and rewards. It calls for a full investment, both physical and emotional.But ultimately it betrays. The habits and rituals, chores and routines, the day planned, the details and obsessions, are not life, they are irrelevant to life and distract from living. Conversely, perhaps perversely, they offer a distraction from the fear of discovering there is no longer anything else. 

Home Suite is played out in the homes of the Collective. These vary from house to apartment to barge but the story unfolds across the same zones in each, providing a spatial link from site to site. Taking site-specificity to its purest form, nothing can be invented, nothing can be put there that has not been previously chosen and placed by the owners.  

Unseen, we follow Home Suite’s characters as their days unravel. At times we are free to roam, whether as part of a group or alone; at others we are held in each room - even seemingly under the characters’ control.

Home Suite and The Collective is supported by the Arts Council England.

Notes to the editor 

The artist 

Whether taking the form of performance, film or installation, Katharine Fry’s work always returns to ideas of freedom and control within time. Beginning with investigations into basic movement, removing both beginning and end, she retains only the middle. This middle is questioned in conjunction with repetition as movement takes the form of detailed rituals and domestic routines. Everyday actions are forced or stretched until people become like objects themselves. It is here that Katharine Fry seeks freedom; fascinated by ideas of time, how we perceive time and ultimately how we might control it. She suggests repetition as the physical manifestation of a thwarted attempt to do so, and raises a mirror to the systems in which we place ourselves. Katharine Fry was born in Belgium in 1981 but is of British origin. An artist working predominantly in live art and performance, she studied MA Scenography at Central St. Martins. Previous work includes Matin Après-Midi at Camden People’s Theatre, Picnic in Mile End Artspark and Quilters Quadrille for Rules & Regs at a space, Southampton. Katharine Fry lives and works in London.

The Collective 

The Collective is made up of groups of people who buy contemporary art together as a way of making it affordable. The initial group in London is based around seven households who make regular payments into a joint account until enough money accrues to buy an art work. Each new art work is bought by a buying panel after a process of meeting with artists or curators and visiting exhibitions. The works are then rotated to allow each household a chance to live with each piece for a period of time. The collection includes works by upcoming and established artists such as Michael Ajerman, Tracy Emin, Peter Doig, Chris Ofili, Frances Richardson, Joy Gregory and Alex Katz. The Collective are particularly interested in buying new, sometimes challenging art by emerging artists. This latest acquisition represents a bolder, more daring exploration by the Collective into the world of contemporary art: It meant opening the doors of their homes and allowing strangers to go through their personal belongings and observe their family life. They are curious and apprehensive as to what the work may reveal.

New groups are being set up in London, Bristol and the West Midlands, eventually forming a network of groups under The Collective national umbrella.

Home Suite will run for one day a week from 21 April to 8 June. 

For more information about the performance and the artist, please visit

www.katharinewheel.com