Circular Hospitality Project

It’s now four months into Circular Hospitality, my residency in collaboration with Design Tasmania, Regional Arts Australia, Dier Makr, Scholé and The Agrarian Kitchen.

The project explores how restaurant waste can be transformed into new design outcomes, including lighting, commercial tile surfaces, and new structures that reduce reliance on plastics moving through venues in constant cycles.

Hospitality waste in Tasmania feels like a largely untapped material stream, rich in both narrative and technical possibility. Unlike mixed waste, many of these by-products are consistent, local and traceable, which makes them incredibly interesting to work with as part of a design and material research process.

In November, an audit was conducted at each venue to identify the waste streams causing the most friction, as well as the materials with the greatest potential to be reworked into something useful. That process helped shape the direction of the residency and the outcomes now being explored.

Some of the materials I’ve been working with so far include fire bricks from The Agrarian Kitchen ovens, fryer oil from Scholé, and wine bottles from Dier Makr, among others. The aim is to treat these waste materials as legitimate design inputs and develop outcomes that are useful, repeatable and grounded in the specific character of each venue.

So far, much of the work has focused on material processing and early testing. That has meant breaking down glass, bricks and shells into workable materials, and beginning the slow but important job of understanding how they behave, both technically and aesthetically.

A big focus has also been developing a new structure for The Agrarian Kitchen to replace the plastic seedling pots used in the greenhouse. As part of that, I’ve been working on a clay body made solely from materials found within their dining waste stream and the fire bricks from their ovens, currently being rejuvenated. Those bricks have helped cook food for almost a decade, and now they’re being reimagined to help grow the next generation of it. Nice little full-circle moment, really.

There’s still a long way to go, but the early stages of the residency are already revealing just how much potential sits inside these overlooked material streams. What’s emerging is not just a body of ceramic research, but a broader conversation about waste, value and how design can play a role in reshaping both.

Esther Gyorki from Regional Arts Australia visited Design Tasmania in late June, to catch up with Kate for an update on her Industry Residency-funded project, as part of Design Tasmania’s Circular Series. Kate chats about how her collaboration with The Agrarian Kitchen, Dier Makr and Scholé is progressing, and how she is repurposing materials such as oyster shells, glass, bricks and bone into ceramic glazes, lighting, tiles and other objects. Kate shares what the residency has meant for her, providing dedicated time for research, experimentation and collaboration, allowing her to test sustainable production methods and develop new material processes.

“The residency is great because it’s allowed me to look deeper into other materials,” she says. “It’s afforded me the time to really go deep and look at other test cases.”

For the full article:

Kate Bowman’s circular hospitality | Industry Residencies

Kate also hosted a ‘Rock, Waste and Place Glaze Workshop’ at Design Tasmania the following day asking 'what happens when ceramics starts with place?' exploring how the materials, geology and waste streams of Tasmania can become part of a ceramic practice.

The workshop brought participants into the heart of the Circular Hospitality project, and covered:

• Working with restaurant byproducts such as shell, ash, bone, and glass Tasmania’s geology and material landscape
• Understanding glaze chemistry
• Triaxial blends and substitution testing
• Material sourcing, processing and safe handling
• Building palettes connected to place and context
• Developing a more resilient and locally grounded studio practice

Table system by Isaac Williams. Ted Stools by Jye Edwards.

Stay tuned for more presentations of the project at Design Tasmania and Artlands in the final stages of the project.