The Coffin Jump

Katrina Palmer’s The Coffin Jump is inspired by the role of women in the First World War, with specific reference to the all-female First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). Founded in 1907, the FANY helped to treat and evacuate wounded men from the battlefields, linking the front line with field hospitals.
The work involved the presentation of an intervention in the landscape, comprising an inscribed fence above a trench. Occasionally activated by a horse and rider, Palmer’s work combines sculpture, soundtrack and performance, and symbolises the new freedoms afforded to women in the war.

In spite of the nurses’ courage, the British Army initially refused to be associated with the women of the FANY, so instead they gave medical support to the Belgian and French armies. Later, they also helped to run medical convoys and drove ambulances in support of British forces. Palmer makes reference to their battle against prejudice through words drawn from sources that include the diaries of FANY member Muriel Thompson.

Inscribed on the obstacle over which the horse leaps, phrases such as ‘woman saves man’ and ‘nothing special happened’ highlight the everyday heroism of women during the First World War.

About the artist
Katrina Palmer (b. 1967, UK) lives and works in London. She studied sculpture at Central St. Martins and the Royal College of Art in London. Palmer is currently a tutor at The Ruskin School of Art and in 2014 was awarded the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists. Her books The Dark Object, The Fabricators’ Tale and End Matter have been published by Bookworks. She was shortlisted for the prestigious Contemporary Art Society Annual Award 2015 for a project at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds, in collaboration with the Henry Moore Institute.

Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, made possible with Art Fund support.