Kate Howe: The Templum

Enter ‘The Templum’, a glowing Temple of Contemplation, open to wonder as time slows down. The Stables Gallery transforms into a safe space where new endings to old stories become possible. Roam through its warm, translucent unexpected alcoves, tunnels, rooms, and burrows. Listen to its soundscapes and silences, sit and watch the light change and encounter others also wondering and wandering. Join a social performance, listen to a reading, and take part in building. ‘The Templum’ is a site powered by curiosity, connection, discussion, sound, dance, silence, meditation, and healing – the collective exploration of a community. 



 

Kate is completing an artist residency at Orleans House Gallery in the lead-up to the exhibition.

The final building phase of the exhibition opens to the public on 6 August, and the fully-realised installation is open to explore from 13 August to 22 September. 

Artist Bio 

Kate Howe
(b.1971) is an American artist living and working in London. They are the founding Artist in Residence of
RuptureXIBIT
(+Studio), an experimental artist-led exhibition space.



 

Howe holds an AA in Technical Theater (highest hons) from Foothill, CA, a BA in Art History (summa cum laude) from Arizona State University (2020), AZ, a Master’s in Painting (distinction) from the Royal College of Art, London,
(2022) and a Master’s in Creative Writing from Kingston University (2024). Howe is currently a doctoral candidate at Leeds University. 


 

Howe showed at the Aspen Art Museum in spring, 2020. Recent selected shows include ‘Omitted References’, Mile End Art Pavilion, London, 2022, and ‘Subterranean Organ’, The Crypt Gallery, London, 2023, both curated
by Daisy Wang. In 2023, the Wild Parlour Artist’s Philosophy Collective exhibited their inaugural group show ‘Alternative Airport’ at RuptureXIBIT, London, 2023. In addition to building the first Templum for this show, Howe produced, designed and wrote the catalogue for the show. Most recently, Howe participated in ‘Light Being’, curated by Jonathan Miles at Lychee One, London, also in 2023. Upcoming shows include a summer 2024 residency at the Stables Gallery, and designing, curating and
participating in the New Butoh Festival at RuptureXIBIT in the fall of 2024.

Howe’s practice includes, as well as other media, installation, painting, theatre, spoken word and social practices. They examine the forces that rend bodies apart and pull the back together.  
 

Howe says: “My work begins at the source: my own body and mind crisscrossed with the scars of surgeries from traumatic and idiopathic tear-and-repair. From this position, all bodies are riven and sutured: bodies of thought, political bodies, bodies of identity, bodies of knowledge, geographical bodies, bodies of faith and community bodies all are pulled apart and pulled back together continuously. Every rending demands a repair, every repair leaves a mark, every mark informs the future, in every future, inevitably, the rending occurs again. I ask the question: how can we make space for ancient cycles of stories to be retold, to make space for different endings, for new stories?

In the suspended moment between the rending and the pulling, the Templums arise like punctuations in my practice, like a gasp for air. They arise as a space for gathering, considering, laying down of arms, biases, prejudices. They are a place to consider a world in which we cease to oppress each other. A temple of contemplation, a space in which geologic time opens: an openness to large thought to have a thought all your own, perhaps other than one you have been instructed to hold as a truth.  
 

   

Running through all my work are the seams of things being healed from rupture, the scar of having been brought back together, pregnant and uneven, forever imprinted with what came before. My work looks primarily at ways to expose
these rending/suturing impulses and provide moments of opportunity for these patterns of behaviour to change: for the story to go a different way.” 

Visit Kate’s Substack: katehowe.substack.com 

View Kate’s Instagram: @katehowestudios