Mary Patten (born 1951, Evanston, IL) is a Chicago artist and activist. Her works combine writing, video installation, performance, artists' books, drawing, photography, collaboration, and activism. Her writing, lectures, videos, and artwork deal with the relationship between art and politics, visual culture, queer theory, terrorism, prisons and torture. She has an MFA from University of Illinois at Chicago (1992) and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. Her videos are distributed by the Video Data Bank and she teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as an Associate Professor in the department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation. She also teaches in the Visual and Critical Studies department and is currently the Chair of the department of Film, Video, New Media, and