Kathryn Fullerton lives and works between the Caren Range Old-Growth Forest and the Salish Sea on the ancestral swiya of the shíshálh people, Canada.

She trained as an educator and is committed to the scholarship of teaching and learning, with the epistemology of how human beings learn as central to her inquiry. In 2009 she received her MA in Environmental Education and Communication, from Royal Roads University, and was a Governor General’s Gold Award nominee based on her groundbreaking arts based thesis. This recognition led Kathryn to see art as a meaningful way to connect with community and emboldened her to nurture an art practice that began to take momentum when she moved to Indonesia and studied with International artists at Gaya Ceramic Arts Center for two years. Since then she has been learning to respond to her lived experience through sculpture, photography, film and installation.

Kathryn’s three year training (2020-2022) in Embodied Imagination®, which emphasizes the importance of bodily sensations, emotions, and movements in accessing and processing information from dreams and memories, has a significant influence on her work. She is an active member of the International Society for Embodied Imagination® and a monthly participant in Kim Gillingham’s Creative Dreamwork practice, which facilitates the conscious connection between the artist and the rich resources of the unconscious.

Kathryn has undertaken artist residencies in New Brunswick (Canada), Sasama (Japan), Lund (Canada) and Vélez Blanco (Spain) and has been awarded two Canada Council for the Arts grants. Her research delves into embodied ways of knowing so that her art praxis is generated from instincts, impulses, dreams and the materials she collaborates with, which are often sourced (locally) from earth and Earth as source. Her life’s work is grounded in a deep curiosity to know more about the visible and invisible worlds we embody.

As an artist working with and on the land, Kathryn’s commitment is to 

  • remember land as a living entity, not a resource or property, and acknowledge the agency and rights of non-human entities

  • correct mistakes of past ancestors by learning more about her colonial history and continuing her path of healing

  • (in acknowledging we are here as a result of a system of violence) change her habits of consumption and learn about the social and environmental costs of her way of life so as to not cause further harm

  • strengthen relationships with, and responsibilities to, the shíshálh people by participating in local events and exploring shíshálh art and culture

Kathryn is grateful and honoured to be in relation with the shíshálh people, land, and nature in one of the historical settlements at kalpilin. She acknowledges the shíshálh Nation has always governed themselves and their Territory, and have never relinquished their authority or jurisdiction over such. 

Portrait by Kasia Gatkowska