Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2010 Kate Morrell has worked with archives, collections and libraries to develop projects that identify and respond to under-researched or overlooked histories. This work questions the conventional logics that serve and organise collections. By doing this, it invites critical re-readings of the hierarchies and structures of power which are given voice in their presentation.

With a background in artist bookmaking, her practice is situated in the expanded field of publishing. She works primarily with print media – with sculpture, drawing and video as extensions of that.

Projects include: documenting illicit, private collections of pre-Columbian ceramics, displayed within the domestic space; research within the Jacquetta Hawkes Archive at the University of Bradford on the life and work of the British archaeologist, Hawkes (1910-1996), whose work was marginalised by a male dominated research community, and a residency at a remote Swiss library, residing alongside ‘shelving robots’ in this innovative futuristic archive.

Kate founded the self-publishing platform Pleats (www.pleatspress.com) under which she has edited, published and distributed 8 titles. Pleats continues a commitment to relationships between archaeological and artistic practices. Books are held in Special Collections including Tate and Henry Moore Institute.

In 2021 a new video work ‘…Y el barro se hizo eterno (...And the Mud Became Eternal)’ was central to a solo show at Chelsea Space, London. The video is a result of research within archaeological collections and archives in Bogotá, Colombia. Subsequently, she was invited to screen the work within the 'Living Area' of the collections at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich in 2022.