Karen Kocher’s decades-long career in documentary is characterized by work across multiple platforms, including broadcast television, digital and physical installation, and mobile media. Her documentary projects are often encyclopedic in nature, encouraging those who interact with the work to consider reality from myriad perspectives. Her dedication to chronicling Austin’s history from pre-history to the present has earned her the prestigious Katherine Drake Hart award from the Austin History Center Association on two occasions—first in 2003 and again in 2023—recognizing her contributions to preserving and interpreting Austin’s history through film and digital media.
The 2003 award honored her work to create Austin Past and Present, the first interactive, digital history of Austin. Published on DVD-ROM before the advent of Web 2.0, this multi-year endeavor resulted in a diverse and inclusive look at Austin’s history with kiosks placed in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Austin’s City Hall, the Austin History Center, the Austin Convention Center and the Austin Central library. Dubbed an “ATM of knowledge” by one user, Austin Past and Present was also available on computer stations at all library branches in Austin. Additionally, Kocher collaborated with the Austin Independent school District, developing curriculum for the project that was used across seven grade levels. A compilation of the short historical documentaries from the project broadcast on Austin PBS under the title, Austin Time Tours.
The award in 2023 honored her continued work to document Austin’s history through the hour- long documentary Origins of a Green Identity, exploring the evolution of Austin’s environmental ethos, and the Barton Creek Time Stream, work that she created with producing partner, Monica Flores. In 2023, Barton Creek Time Stream was also awarded the 2023 Texas Digital Library Consortium’s, Digital Excellence award. This award “honors a specific project that demonstrates overall excellence in one or more areas of digital curation or digital scholarship practice.” The Barton Creek Time Stream site, with its free downloadable curriculum, is currently used by high school students who are studying AP environmental science, helping them to understand historical events and themes across 50 years of citizen efforts to preserve Austin’s Barton Creek.
Both Origins of a Green Identity and the Barton Creek Time Stream are part of the on-going Living Springs series, now comprising 41 documentary films of varying lengths. The series explores the history, science, culture and spiritual practices at Austin’s Barton Springs. These documentaries have been broadcast on Austin PBS, integrated into school curriculum, and are an integral part of the educational exhibits at the Joan Means Khabele bathhouse at Barton Springs.
As an extension of Living Springs, Karen has helmed two interactive exhibits at the rotunda of the Barton Springs bathhouse, the 2018 interactive installation, Faces of Barton Springs and her current Barton Creek Time Stream exhibit.
Faces of Barton Springs (Spring-Fall 2018) produced in collaboration with artist, Lauren Jaben was a multi-sensory installation for all ages celebrating the Barton Springs swimming community. Featuring a 9-footlong collage of swimmer “selfies,” including a printed booklet of personal statements to accompany over 130 community submissions. A wall-sized magnetic poetry tree with customized words provided a backdrop for visitors to compose poems and haikus. A 4-sided, free- standing kiosk invited visitors to leave a note about their Springs experiences. Listening stations fashioned from old telephones showcased Barton Springs-themed poetry and music. Cartoonist, Sam Hurt created foam core sculptures of birds, bats and other natural ephemera providing a whimsical touch to the entire space and providing the subject matter for a childrens seek-and-find game.
In conjunction with the Barton Creek Time Stream exhibit celebrated the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. This interactive installation, created with producing partner, Monica Flores explored 50+ years of stewardship on Austin’s beloved Barton Creek, and included The Time Stream: a 12-foot artistically-rendered timeline, that tells the story—through images and ephemera—of the major events that have led to the creation of the Barton Creek Greenbelt and protection of the creek. A Stewards Gallery features a wall-sized photomontage celebrating over 80 the stewards of Barton Creek with an accompanying binder featuring a combination of first and third person stories. A 4-sided interactive kiosk utilizes magnetized images where visitors can learn about native and invasive species by playing an interactive game. A large screen video loop features original drone footage of the Barton Creek watershed. This physical installation was greatly expanded and public in digital form as the Barton Creek Time Stream in 2022.
Kocher’s interest in fusing digital technology and the natural world further manifests in the project Zilker Trek (2009), an immersive, mobile-media scavenger hunt and nature- journaling activity. Zilker Trek was initially designed for the Sunshine Camp in Austin, Texas to help these underserved kids and their counselors find greater meaning in their natural surroundings in Zilker Park through guided and direct interactions with the natural environment.
In 2009 this project was developed for the web and is available to homeschoolers and others interested parties free-of-charge. www.zilkertrek.org
Kocher’s outreach efforts reflect her strong commitment to fostering connections between her media work and the community that it documents. She is continually exploring the ways that the documentary can be useful to civic institutions, including city government, non-profit organizations and in the educational sphere. Her dedication to ensuring that her work has a direct community impact has been recognized repeatedly, including the 2024 with The University of Texas at Austin’s 2024 Tower AwardsGlen Baumgart Visionary Community Engagement Award, the 2020 Lonestar Chapter of the Sierra Club Art in the Service of the Environment Award, and the 2015 SXSW Interactive, Dewey Winburne Community Service Award.
Currently, she is producing a short-form, animated documentary about the historic youth-led swim-ins at Austin's Barton Springs in the early 1960s. Additionally, she is in post-production on a long-format documentary, Foreverland, focusing on the role of civic engagement to create Austin’s famed Barton Creek Greenbelt. Both projects will broadcast on Austin PBS and installed at the Joan Means Khabele bathhouse at Barton Springs.
Kocher, an Avid-certified instructor, taught digital post-production, and occasionally documentary production and documentary history from Fall 1998-Spring 2024. In 2004, she created the first course in interactive documentary within the Department of Radio-TV-Film. She taught documentary short course workshops as part of the UT Austin/Portugal CoLab in Lisbon, Portugal and Porto, Portugal from 2007-2011. In the summer of 2010, Ms. Kocher helmed a course in Video Poetry at the world-renowned Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado.