Kat Cutler-MacKenzie is an artist and art historian with particular specialisms in collage, feminist theory and critical art history. Kat is based at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, where she shares a studio with her artistic collaborator Ben Caro. The duo draw upon techniques from experimental archaeology — in which found objects are re-cast or re-performed to unlock tacit histories, and pedagogic methods of communication — such as the 35mm slide lecture or ‘lecture performance’ to explore the intertwined practices of museology, archaeology and art through moving image and the (re-)construction of negative space. Kat recently presented her research on artistic approaches to Art History at the Association for Art History Annual Conference 2002 and is working towards the exhibition of her work at gr_und gallery (Berlin) in February 2023 and at the RSA New Contemporaries (Edinburgh) in March 2023.
Family ties are challenged and remade during politically divisive and tumultuous times in Véronique Olmi’s intimate and brilliantly written novel, Daughters Beyond Command.
Vigdis Hjorth’s novel, Is Mother Dead, translated by Charlotte Barslund, interrogates the cultural expectations placed on ‘woman’ and ‘mother’, and offers a stark and powerful addition to the growing body of ‘motherhood’ texts, writes Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie.
Lieke Marsman’s brilliantly ‘cool’ novel, The Opposite of a Person (translated by Sophie Collins), is at once a novel about love and language, people and the individual, nature and the ideas we wield over the natural world, writes Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie.
Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie talks to Maltese author and performer Loranne Vella about her collection of short fiction, what will it take for me to leave, the influence of performance on her work, memory as a liberating and imprisoning force, European feminism and her upcoming novel, Marta Marta.
Bodies traverse histories, tap into memories and are saturated with feelings and experiences in Loranne Vella’s superb short fiction collection, WhatWill It Take For Me To Leave, translated by Kat Storace.
Artists Kat Cutler-MacKenzie and Ben Caro discuss their collaborative work, O.o.o.h! , a semi-pedagogic, semi-absurd investigation into the menstrual cycle inspired, in part, by the thought of philosopher Graham Harman and the photographs of Rafal Miłach.
This exhilarating anthology of short stories challenges us to look beyond the shiny façade of ‘the new’ and to embrace ‘the abject’ – the ambiguous, the old, the distressing parts of ourselves and our society – and to ask what place the abject should have in our culture today.
In the aftermath of serious illness, Harriet Mercer explores painful and often traumatic experiences in a narrative that beautifully renders what is still, too often, “unthinkable / unthought”.
Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie talks to award-winning author Niven Govinden about his latest book Diary of a Film, the power and freedom of walking, the importance of the cinematic lens to his writing and assertive characters.
Niven Govinden’s latest novel, Diary of a Film, is a love letter to the art of cinema, a sensuous portrayal of the relationships occurring behind the camera as well as on-screen.
In this creative, collagic essay, Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie writes with and through the words of Virginia Woolf, Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva to convey the freedom of writing and kinship felt when reading their works.
After an Erasmus exchange in Paris, artist and art historian Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie discovered that translation is about the space between languages and voices; a space that affords us new connections, ideas and friendships.