16/01/16
Katrina Palmer: The Necropolitan Line
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
10 December 2015 – 21 February 2016
In its most radical architectural
intervention yet, the Henry Moore Institute’s main gallery is, thanks to
Katrina Palmer (b1967), currently bisected by a railway platform. And it is no
ordinary platform, but a platform from the London Necropolitan Railway, built
in 1854 at Waterloo station, to see off the bereaved and those that had
departed this life on a (in the latters’ case) one-way journey to the London
Necropolis, built outside of the capital in Brookwood, Surrey, with the
intention that it should provide a burial site large enough to accommodate Londoners
for all of time to come.
As an artist whose practice is
steeped in research and narrative, with a penchant for blending fact and
fiction, Palmer’s selection for an exhibition at an institute whose remit is to
promote sculpture, naturally raises questions about the very nature of this art
form. Head of Sculpture Studies at the institute, Lisa Le Feuvre, talks to
Studio International about these issues and explains the history of the Necropolitan
Line and Palmer’s unique take on how to represent its story in a gallery in
Leeds.
Watch the interview with Lisa Le Feuvre here