Studio Wall, July 2026 presents a snapshot of an analogue photographic practice in development. Composed of notebook pages, test prints, lumen negatives, teaching notes, and material experiments. Created while establishing Art Photo School and beginning a new body of research centred on grass, the work brings together material traces of both artistic and educational practice. Growing up on dairy farms in the Waikato, I developed a severe allergy to a plant that shaped both my childhood and Aotearoa's agricultural landscape. The installation foregrounds experimentation, learning, and ideas in progress.

Kate van der Drift is a contemporary photographer living and working in the Waikato. Her practice is rooted in engagement with ecological processes, human relationships to place, and the possibilities of photography as a form of attentive listening and collaborative storytelling. In 2022, van der Drift completed an MFA at Elam School of Fine Art. She currently has work on exhibition at The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa as part of Slow Burn: Women and Photography. In 2024, she won the Highly Commended Award in the Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards and was also named the Auckland Council Artist in Residence at Waitawa Regional Park. Kate is represented by Sanderson Contemporary in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland.