Kate's artist statement

K.J. artist statement – November 2014

My practice reframes existing narratives to reveal alternative readings of constructed spaces and histories. I explore how spaces, symbols, and archetypes of power and powerlessness can be questioned and reinterpreted, to reveal and/or construct new narratives. These projects operate in the liminal space between fact and fiction, and are driven by my own perceptions of these histories/spaces/collections and their inconsistencies and relationships to both fact and fiction.

My current project employs these methods to investigate the history of the personal in a series entitled The Autobiography of Marie Reid.

In this work, I am interested in the impossible attempts to reconstruct memories from a life not lived, as well as the recurring orphan trope in popular culture and literature that fetishizes the orphan and the adoptee. I am interested in bringing the trope to light and exploring it and doing so from the perspective of an adoptee from a closed adoption. The popular story of the fictional heroic adoptee, often with superpowers, is juxtaposed with the real story of trying to recover one’s own hidden/secret and lost history.

In the work I challenge the cultural myths that society has built up about orphans and adoptees. These stories do not originate from our voice but are rather a glamorized notion of the lone individual, unfettered by parents and heritage, who is free to fulfill all of society’s childhood fantasies. A few examples include: Harry Potter, Huck Finn, Frodo Baggins, Jayne Eyre, Ponyboy Curtis, Anne of Green Gables, Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist, Mowgli, Annie, and Superman.

The project explores themes of identity, displacement, and reconstruction. It is composed of various media and includes photos, videos, objects, text, clothing, and posters. One such set of posters, The Annieoke stills, encourages viewers to hum along to the familiar lyrics of the tune “Tomorrow,” catching them in the myth making and by doing so, making the viewer complicit. They are also encouraged to consider the idea of dressing up as a person without parents for Halloween. The instructions suggest that the viewer might borrow an old shirt from his/her dad to construct the perfect orphan costume.

For much of my work, the process involves research, site visits, and documentation. These activities become part of the material out of which the work is constructed.