Kat Bawden

Kat Bawden is a photographer and filmmaker based in Chicago. Her work is a deeply personal investigation of the relationship between the body, trauma, and perception. Using her own body as the object of study and subject of expression, she works with her camera to dissect the phenomena of being perceived. The process of filming and then rewatching and reflecting on the recordings is a form of ritual healing and questioning: “What happens when I perform these actions on myself, and what happens when I perform them for a viewer? What new neural and physical pathways can I create? What happens to me in my body, and what happens to you? What happens when my gaze meets your gaze?” Her video works are short loops of repetitive corporeal gestures that interrogate the friction between intimacy and voyeurism. They negotiate the interplay of vulnerability, control, and the reciprocal dynamics of seeing and being seen. Her exploration centers on the body's capacity for transformation—both physiological and psychological—and the mediating presence of the camera as a means to renegotiate embodiment. Drawing from symbolism, scientific research, and the poetics of the natural world, her installations are not only visual but somatic—immersive environments that render the body as both subject and site. The artist uses projection as a material, allowing the body to merge with the architecture and atmosphere of the space. In these spaces, viewers are not passive observers but active co-creators, drawn into a dialogue with the work and, ultimately, with themselves. Bawden’s recent projects continue to center the body—often her own—as both subject and medium, while expanding into collaborative explorations with friends and research into archival photographs and historical imagery.