Katie
Smart

Katie Smart creates a vision of othered physicality to imagine a space where she and others might flourish.

She asks herself, “If I were to imagine a perfect place for my psyche, what would it look like? I would want a soft place for my vulnerabilities to land. I would want a shadow that surrounded me with the smell of rain. I’d want cozy corners to hide in and mountains to shout off of. Every act of bravery would change the way gravity worked, and I’d have a special place for awkward childhood memories ” If someone tells her they are “out of the woods now,” she longs to explore that conception of fairy tale threat, mystery, and hope–where whimsical curiosity and archetypal discomfort meet.

When we feel our conceptions shift, she posits that we are experiencing a version of the Sublime. The word “hypsous” describes the “moment of transport” that happens when we meet the Sublime. That “transport” in this case is the “shift” of existing paradigms. One might say in this circumstance: ‘It’s not the end of the world, just the end of a world.’ One might suddenly sense that the limitations we feel are not insurmountable, or understand that that which is on the horizon won’t stay there, as long as one keeps moving forward.