Kate Mackeson
Bondsinheritancemotionthings
Opening October 18th, 4-7pm
The wallet has become a continuing theme in Mackeson’s recent work. In previous works she enlarged wallets until they became architecture: monumental faux-leather structures seemingly exceeding their own structural limits. What grows beyond measure begins to bend and collapse under its own weight. (1)
In Bondsinheritancemotionthings, the already fragile architecture has collapsed completely. No longer aiming for equilibrium, the wallets are flattened. Horizontal, empty and still oversized, they contain internal frames and vibration motors, visibly attached to a power source by electrical cables.
Yet, although apparently emptied or defeated, they refuse stasis. They judder, hum and drift across the floor, tethered to real limitations: a power source.
The theatre of a wallet is about its reveal: its brand, age, and weight, now slowly replaced by digital anonymity to make the object an ornament of the past. Given its rapid disappearance through the dematerialization of currency, the wallet is losing its reliability as a visual symbol of possession for containing and displaying value.
Mackeson forces the container itself back into circulation. The formerly static architecture has been brought back to life, but in an altered state. Its size comically dwarfs and erodes practicality. It may have lost its purpose, but it has acquired drive. It moves without arriving anywhere and performs activity without producing anything. It has nothing left to do, yet it cannot stop moving.
After utility has disappeared, the wallet has only one act: desire.
Kate Mackeson (b. 1985, Taunton) lives and works in London. She received an MA from the Royal College of Art in 2015. Her work has been presented in exhibitions including City at Worse, London (2025); Not Dying at Burg Hülshoff, Münster (2025); Modernization at CIRCUIT Centre d’Art Contemporain, Lausanne (2024); Bourne at Sundy, London (2023); Antechamber at Museum Folkwang, Essen (2022); Wrecking Ball at Petra Bibeau, New York (2022); Moods II at Villa Concordia, Bamberg (2021); Digestif at La Plage, Paris (2019); and Landlords are Currently Not Accepting Rent in Self-Love at Cell Project Space, London (2016).
(1) Marco Bruzzone, Scena Domestica con Coccodrillo curated by Marco Bruzzone, BiM, Milan, 2026.