For the past 13 years I have worked with archives, collections and libraries to develop projects that identify and respond to under-researched or overlooked histories. This work questions the conventional logics that serve and organise collections. By doing this, it invites critical re-readings of the hierarchies and structures of power which are given voice in their presentation.
With a background in artist bookmaking, my practice is situated in the expanded field of publishing. I work primarily with print media – with sculpture, drawing and video as extensions of that.
I have developed diverse methods for working with collections of different scales and contexts (Sitterwerk Art Library and Material Archive, Switzerland; MUSA Archaeology Museum, Bogotá; SOAS University of London; Kendal Museum, Cumbria). Outcomes from these commissions and projects have entered the collections at Tate, Henry Moore Institute and the Museum of Modern Art, Bogotá.
Projects include: documenting illicit, private collections of pre-Columbian ceramics, displayed within the domestic space; research within the Jacquetta Hawkes Archive at the University of Bradford on the life and work of the British archaeologist, Hawkes (1910-1996), whose work was marginalised by a male dominated research community, and a residency at a remote Swiss library, residing alongside ‘shelving robots’ in this innovative futuristic archive.
In 2021 a new video work ...Y el barro se hizo eterno (...And the Mud Became Eternal) was central to a solo show at Chelsea Space, London. The video is a result of research within archaeological collections and archives in Bogotá, Colombia. Subsequently, I was invited to screen the work within the 'Living Area' of the collections at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich in 2022.
kate_morrell(at)icloud(dot)com
Instagram: @kate_pleats