KATRIN BAUMANN PHOTOGRAPHE
Katrin Baumann was born in Germany in 1964 and spent her childhood in Munich, the South of France and New York.
She is a photographer from a variety of backgrounds! Her parents were true globe-trotters and nourished her emotional
and visual exploration of the world.
From the United Nations International School, to film studies then Arts & Communication studies in Paris,
photography classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Katrin’s experience has been of different worlds from the outset.
Assistant to several photographers including acclaimed still life specialists Richard Pierce and Doug Rosa,
studio manager at Studio Oasis Paris, Katrin Baumann acquired and honed her skills between the Big Apple and the City of Light.
For Katrin, photography can bear witness, and she is constantly questioning the medium, tramping through urban centres
on the old and new continents, and capturing the way European cities are changing.
When the demolition of the Renault Plant on Seguin Island was announced, Katrin took a stance.
She felt that a souvenir should be kept of the gargantuan scale of human industrial projects, while at the same time giving
the island a new purpose and dimension. Giant panoramic shots were taken from a barge, a project commensurate
with the height of the building. The witness becomes conservationist.
Katrin continued her walks through urban landscapes. She encountered the world of voluntary work. Invested her time in the project
called "Droit de cité", (a play on words evoking the law of the housing estate and the right to be quoted) giving an opening towards
creativity and cultural activities for young suburban dwellers. The camera melts into the background and becomes a part of the surroundings.
Portraits, but not poses. She produced "Prose Combat", a large dossier on creative writing workshops, which went on show
at the Grande Halle de la Villette in 1998, and then in FNAC stores.
At the same time, Katrin produced a series of commissions for the world of music – CD covers and portraits of bands –,
worked with major corporations on their annual reports or visual campaigns and also carried out numerous industrial assignments.
She set off for Dakar in 2000, to work with African plastic artists and sculptors.
In the period of two years when she worked for these artists and skilled craftsmen, she re-connected with her original passion for still life.
A truth that imposed itself upon her on the occasion of the production of the special Christmas catalogue for Nova magazine.
Through Katrin’s lens, objects become vibrant, life is breathed into them. She combines and mingles them with her imagination.
Back in the studio, the main concern is no longer of bearing witness, but of naturally framing and staging all kinds of objects.
Creating the situations and circumstances that will leave room for chance in what is a highly-controlled technique.