Katrina Palmer creates sculptures out of words, often drawing on history and literature. Her narrative-based, site-specific works take the form of immersive installations, books, public readings and recordings. Central to her practice are themes around absence, loss and memorialisation. The limited edition book The Time Travelling Circus is the result of Palmer’s research into Pablo Fanque (1810–71), born William Darby, a celebrated equestrian who was the first Black travelling circus performer and proprietor in the UK. Fanque is buried in St. George’s Field, an area of recreational parkland that was bought by the University of Leeds in the 1930s and is now part of its campus. The site was a Victorian cemetery that was in use until 1969. Whilst working on her exhibition The Necropolitan Line (2015) at Henry Moore Institute, Palmer became interested in Fanque, whose story is largely forgotten, apart from a few archival documents available to the public in the University’s Brotherton Library. Palmer’s book serves as an artist’s intervention in the library, using the notion of a time travelling circus as a way to experiment with different temporalities and different voices. Attentive to the itinerant but recurring nature of circus buildings and performances, the artist explores Fanque’s forgotten history through story-telling. The narrative of the book relates the death of Fanque’s first wife Susannah, who was killed in 1848 when the circus ceiling collapsed during a performance. She is also buried in St. George’s Field. Drawing parallels between the Library’s dome and a circus ‘big top’, Susannah re-materialises in Palmer’s story as the Art Deco chandelier hanging at the centre of the Library’s domed ceiling. The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery is keen to make connections with the Brotherton Library. Palmer’s publication, on display in the Library, successfully challenges the idea of what an artist book can be as it actively engages the reader. Palmer’s work also addresses the gender-imbalance in the Gallery’s collection, which is especially significant for the University of Leeds, given its importance as the centre for Feminist Art History in the UK and as the site of Feminist Archive North.
