Kate V Robertson has long been observing how digital spaces are becoming the default setting for all kinds of human experience, questioning the potential detachment from the truths of materiality and physicality that have defined the human condition.

 

Using collage, drawing and photography the works in Post were made by Robertson before and during lockdown measures were introduced in the UK in March 2020. With the sudden changes, online chat rooms and digital landscapes were brought to the fore. Robertson explores the tools with which we connect our interior and exterior lives, and the conditions that allow for true connection; a universal desire that persists, despite technology or geography.

 

Robertson’s drive to understand the world around her, manifests in the accumulation of a plethora of subjects and materials. Underpinning this is a desire for art to ask the questions and connect us to the unseen. As the commuter rituals such as picking up a Metro in the subway are put on hold, there is an urgency to preserve the artefacts that contain truths of connection and directness. The traces are in sight, their value within our grasp and the capacity to express ourselves outwith the realms of technology are more important now than ever.

 

Post continues Robertson’s exploration of our increasingly screen-based life, the spaces we create for connection to take place. Objects are not becoming obsolete on their own, the spaces where we once met each other are shifting too.