Kat Austen is a person. In her artistic practice, she focusses on environmental issues. She melds disciplines and media, creating sculptural and new media installations, performances and participatory work. Austen’s practice is underpinned by extensive research and theory, and driven by a motivation to explore how to move towards a more socially and environmentally just future.

Working from her studios in Seoul and Berlin, Austen is Artist in Residence at the Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences, University College London and Senior Teaching Fellow at UCL Arts and Sciences. With projects supported by Neustart Kultur, ZER01NE, Jeonju Millenium Hanji Museum and Creative Europe among others, she has held numerous residencies and fellowships including STARTS Residency Repairing the Present at Ars Electronica, EMAP / EMARE Artist in Residence at WRO Art Center 2020 and Artist Fellow at Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) Helmholz Center, Potsdam. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and holds a Ph.D. from UCL in Chemistry.

Austen’s field research has included a voyage around the Canadian High Arctic as Artist in the Arctic 2017 for Friends of Scott Polar Research Institute (University of Cambridge) for her project The Matter of the Soul. In 2018 Austen was selected as inaugural Cultural Fellow in Art and Science at the Cultural Institute, University of Leeds for the same project.

Austen’s prize-winning work has exhibited at Changwon Sculpture Biennale, Republic of Korea; Jeju Museum of Art, Republic of Korea; V&A, UK; Bonhams Art Gallery, UK; The Polar Museum, UK; Contemporary Museum, Wrocław, Poland; Prater Galerie, Germany; LABoral, Spain; Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Belgium among others, and her work is held internationally in public and private collections. She has performed around the globe, including at Opera North, UK; BALTIC, UK; Fusion Festival, DE; Ars Electronica Festival, AT and Headlands Center for the Arts, US.