We’re delighted to announce that we have commissioned artist Kate Sweeney to develop a new text work in response to our open call for applications that considered the WANE library’s collection, histories of women artists in the North East and archive practice, as part of our fifth anniversary.
We received over 40 applications from artists and writers nationally, which were reviewed and carefully considered by a panel including the WANE Library team and Charlotte Proctor from Cinenova. We were excited by Kate’s proposal to explore the Library through the lens of the ‘adoptive body’; reflecting on the notion that archives are not static, institutional monuments of fixed knowledge but are, like bodies, porous containers and conduits of matter and matterings, in an ongoing state of flux.
Kate’s project with the Women Artists of the North East Library is called ‘relations, archives, biomes’. She is looking forward to scouring the WANE library and drawing from voices, gestures and marks left behind by women of this region regarding motherhood and the adoptive body.
Kate Sweeney’s archive practice is concerned with silences, hidden things and notions of privacy. She writes, draws and makes video, sometimes in collaboration, in her efforts to unpick knots and tie up ends.
Congratulations to Kate, and we can’t wait to see how the project develops!