ABOUT COCOON

Since my early days as a stage director, my work has always focused on the question of memory and its crucial role in the constitution of an individual, but even more so of a community, a place or a landscape. In recent years, this theme has led me to move my practice from the stage to the heart of public space, experimenting with art forms such as installation. 

Since 2008 I have been building temporary outdoor sculptures called Cocoons and creating inclusive performances in communities with traumatic histories, especially where migration animates the landscape. My work is made with natural, inexpensive and local materials that are activated by light and sound, making the whole piece organic and alive.

At the end of two years in each site, I invite the whole community to come together to discover the work, which illuminates people and events that have been hidden, meanings that have been lost. Cocoon aims to create a place and time where familiar hierarchies are disrupted, where all stories can be told and voices heard for one night. 

My practice draws from a variety of disciplines: community organizing to encourage participation; oral history to record stories; documentary to create the soundtrack of interview excerpts; symbolic props and light; public sculpture; theater and civic event in the procession through the streets to the 10-by-26-foot installation.

Technically, I work as simply as possible, interpreting and stripping down what I learned from creating narrative and non-narrative theater for twenty years to make very focused and concentrated work. I have worked since the beginning of the series with a photographer who makes the formal portraits of participants, about 80-100 at each project.

More recently, I've begun to present my work indoors, using all the media available to me from the outside installations: sculpture, photographs, videos, lights, soundtracks or even performance. By doing that I bring a new audience to discover these stories.

Kate Browne

Each Cocoon is based on a specific issue.

Each Cocoon is adapted to the site.

Drawings by Kate Browne, 2019.

Lanterns made for Cocoon "Following the Removals" symbolize the loss of homes and families removed by the anti-Roma city government in Miskolc. Each lantern had the name and address of a family that had been removed and home destroyed. These were placed in the foundation and then carried to the Cocoon. In Hungary, lanterns are lit in cemeteries to commemorate the dead.

Stay informed about Cocoon

My name is Kate Browne. I am an artist, writer, and director. I was born and raised in Central Pennsylvania. I have lived in New York City for nearly 40 years.

At anytime, you can contribute to Cocoon with a donation.

All Kate Browne’s outdoor artworks are free to the public.