Mary Patten is a visual artist, video-maker, writer, educator, and long-time political activist. For years, Patten has led or participated in many public collaborations including Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (CTJM) and Feel Tank Chicago to reclaim a “utopia of the everyday,” a way of being together in the world that allows for anger, joy, and reparative visions. Sometimes working collaboratively means slipping under the radar, but that’s a risk worth taking.
Exhibitions and screenings include Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Tufts University Art Galleries, Cooper Union, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, threewalls, Interference Archive, The New Museum, VOX Populi, Shedhalle in Zürich, Chicago Cultural Center, Randolph Street Gallery, Creative Time (with Feel Tank Chicago), Rotterdam International Film Festival, London and Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals, and MIX/NYC. Patten has written for Revolution as an Eternal Dream, Art AIDS America Chicago, The Passionate Camera, and WhiteWalls. Patten has received a Robert Rauschenberg Artist As Activist Fellowship (with CTJM), awards from Artadia, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Mary Patten teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
