Kat Anderson

Kat Anderson is an artist filmmaker, currently working under an artistic and research framework called ‘Episodes of Horror’, which uses the genre of horror to discuss representations of mental illness and trauma as experienced by or projected upon Black bodies in media.

Kat has co-curated Jamaican Pulse: Art and Politics from Jamaica and the Diaspora at the Royal West of England Academy, been commissioned by the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and has been an artist in residence at METAL Liverpool, as part of its Liverpool Biennial programme to look at the historic and contemporary mental health of Black people living in the city. Her first solo exhibition which opened in September 2019 was Restraint Restrained at Block 336.

The Jerwood New Work Fund will support Kat to research and develop a new video work called ‘Episodes of Horror: Enoch’s Dream’. At the centre of the work is former UK politician Enoch Powell, who in the 60s was responsible for major mental health reforms such as closing the asylums, and divisive immigration ideas, such as ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. Kat will use the concept of ’hauntings’ to explore how these seminal civic moments were used to further deepen the criminalisation and alienation of Black bodies and how Powell’s legacy can still be felt in the UK today. The project is also supported by Metal, Liverpool.

Episodes of Horror Enoch's Dream. Image: Kat Anderson