Join Griffin’s artist-in-residence Karen Zalamea to learn more about what she has been up to throughout her time at Griffin Art Projects!

Karen Zalamea (she/her) is a Filipino-Canadian artist, educator, and cultural worker based in Vancouver, Canada, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəyə̓ m (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh  (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.  

Zalamea’s interdisciplinary practice is rooted in photography and critically considers  methodologies, materiality, and modes of presentation. Her research centres on the camera mediated relationship between body and space, as well as the material and representational  potential of the photographic surface. Her work has expanded to use photography as a means to  think through and encounter broader issues of identity, memory, and uncertainty. 

Zalamea’s projects have received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and she has carried out artist residencies in the Philippines, Iceland, and Canada. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions and as public art projects across Canada and internationally. In 2020, Zalamea released her limited-edition artist book They are lost as soon as they are made. Zalamea holds an MFA from Concordia University, Montreal, and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver.