bio

Bastian received her BFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MA and MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

In 2022, Bastian was a finalist for the Women’s Forward Fund Forward Forward Art Prize, and received an Award of Merit from Wisconsin Visual Arts for her piece in the Wisconsin Biennial. She was one of two Dane County Emerging Artists for 2017-18 through Arts and Literature Laboratory and Dane Arts, and was the Artist-in-Residence at the Madison Public Library’s Bubbler for the months of August and September, 2017.

Bastian co-founded Madison, WI non-profit, all ages arts venue Communication in 2018. She currently serves as Director.

View CV here.

Statement

I am a neurodivergent and disabled artist, arts administrator, and mother.

I have always known when a photo was right, or if a small sculpture was complete. It was only once I started working more in community with folks that also had mental health and disability struggles, building infrastructure toward equity in my community, that I learned all of the ways in which I was considering my work were through a lens of neurodivergence. I use the art making process to regulate my nervous system and feel safe in the world.

While my photographic process is solitary, my art practice beyond photography is rooted in care, advocacy and community. Portions of my art practice are solitary and nurturing: quick, diaristic snaps of the camera, the sewing of strange, amorphous soft sculptures, and constructing small drawings or animals for my daughter. Portions of my practice are communal: large scale textile installations that allow viewers to access feelings of nostalgia and comfort, or drinking tea in a crowded basement while facilitating conversation about expelling misogyny from the local music scene.

All of my current bodies of work focus on grief, love, self discovery, and ritual. Since the death of my second mother in January of 2022, I have had revelations around repressed trauma from my childhood and found words for neurodivergence. I have explored these two issues as facets of my grief over the past year through quilt work and an obsession with candle-lighting and melted wax. Through these processes, I have begun to find myself anew. I have given purpose to my time and the love and pain I wish to express.

Rituals as a part of my life have always felt inaccessible. I was raised within the Catholic church but felt disillusioned by it from a very young age. It did not give me solace from loneliness or pain then, but I have returned to it to mine for useful rituals now. When my mother died, I felt the horror of being truly without my life’s guide. I realized that only by creating my own rituals - some based on religious experiences from my youth - would I pull myself out of despair.

Through all of my processes of making, I want to create objects and experiences that resonate with the human yearning for safety and acceptance.