Leap of faith.

Leap of Faith was initiated by Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It aimed to enable women from diverse backgrounds to take a leap of faith and explore how interactions between other women, horses and making could benefit their wellbeing and creativity. It took YSP’s 14-18NOW commission The Coffin Jump by Katrina Palmer as its starting point.

Co-created with therapists, researchers and clients from two women’s centres, the project spanned four months and involved equine therapy and direct engagement with YSP collections. As lead artist I devised and led participatory sessions, created artworks and supported both research and reflection. The women and I made use of drawing (wire, rope, paper strips, sewing and writing) to investigate our feelings and consider what mattered. Their constructions and subsequent developments where shared at a YSP sited exhibition. I created text based pieces and woodcut prints as both support for the sessions and stand alone pieces.

Dr H Rowley [MMU] wrote:  Kate works at the boundaries of art and participation, ways of knowing and relating to oneself and others through creative processes which can constitute representational and non-representable forms. She is not afraid to take risks or put herself in positions of vulnerability to enable tensions to surface or power to be exchanged, in fact she does this deliberately but in often covert ways. At the centre of her practice is the importance of careful listening, holding space and the importance of not knowing. In often subversive ways, Kate uses these practices to convey meanings which produce connections based on love and care that then get re-signified by participants so they can find new ways of understanding themselves.       

Download Leap of Faith report

Too much and too little
5 part woodcut print on Japanese silk paper
Edition of 10
2.5 m x 70cm