Elements of a train station inside the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds: Katrina Palmer’s The Necropolitan Line

On a day trip to Wakefield and Leeds I accidentally ended up at the Private View for Katrina Palmer’s The Necropolitan Line, and I’m so glad I did.

I knew nothing about the show before going in – only that Katrina’s other work I knew from Artangel (End Matter, The Loss Adjusters) was a combination of site-specific audio, installation and printed matter.

This work, at The Henry Moore Institute, creates a railway station of sorts; a train platform, sound (from platform announcement speakers and headphones), backlit photographs of signals and station furniture (where you can read the specially produced newspaper) to create the atmosphere of a strange waiting place…

The text and photos in the paper – produced as a kind of commuter-friendly freesheet – include references to the Crossbones burial ground at London Bridge and and The Necropolis railway in Waterloo. There’s also a re-print of Dickens’ The Signalman story.

I loved seeing people sitting on the platform benches reading it; their actions unconsciously responding to the work as if they were waiting for a coming train…

I only had an hour or so in Leeds, but read my copy of The Line on my train journey back to London… Brilliant!