Kathleen Herbert uses the medium of performance and documentary to question and engage with the historical and contemporary functions of space. Often she finds an obscure historical footnote that she then explores to unlock a space’s unique atmosphere and identity. Her work draws on the conventions of documentary and film to build a series of narratives, often by redefining location and scale or through a layering of details. She creates a sense of intrigue, never quite exposing the full extent of the situation or story that she is telling. Through use of the uncanny, her work blurs boundaries between fact and fiction, myth and reality, investigating ideas around superstition, rituals and histories. Herbert draws out the apparent uninteresting or unspoken, redefining social, political, historic spatial narratives.

Kathleen Herbert lives and works in Kent. She has received several major awards from the Arts Council England, and British Council. In 2005 Kathleen was nominated for the Becks Futures Award. Recently Kathleen's video and binaural sound piece was exhibited at The New York Public Library, as part of Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works.

Kathleen has completed several major commissions from the Southbank Centre, London, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Firstsite Gallery Colchester. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including: Danielle Arnaud, London (2020), Fotografskia, Stockholm, (2017), Art in Motion, Musseums Wiltshire, UK (2017) A Light Shines in the Darkness, Film and Video Umbrella Tour, UK (2014-2015); Stable, MOBIA Museum of Biblical Art, New York (2014); Force of Nature: Picturing Ruskin’s Landscape, Millennium Museum, Sheffield, (2013); Restless Times, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich (2012); Firstsite, Colchester (2012); VOLTA NY, New York, (2010); Vita, Kuben, Umea, Sweden (2009); Hå gamle prestegard, Norway (2009); Sint Lukas Gallery, Brussels (2008); Auckland Triennial, Auckland (2004); Out of Site, Arnolfini, Bristol (2004), Time & Again, Crawford Gallery, Cork (2003); The Heimlich/Unheimlich, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (2002); SCAPE, Art & Industry Bienniale, Christchurch (2002); The Silk Purse Procedure, Arnolfini & Spike Island, Bristol (2001).

Kathleen’s practice has also been featured in various publications most recently in Art Forum International, where Zack Hatfield reviewing, Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works, described Everything Is Fleeing To Its Presence, as mesmerising and majestic. Kathleen has also been featured in Wall Street International, Time Out, The Sunday Times Culture Magazine, Artist Newletter, Art Monthly, The Guardian Guide and recently ‘Installation as Encounter’: Ernesto Neto, Do Ho Suh and Kathleen Herbert Considered’, in Rina Arya (ed), ‘Contemplations of the Spiritual in Contemporary Art’.