ARTIST STATEMENT

Through her sculptures and installation work where she recreates spaces such as the Chinese restaurant, opium dens, Chinatown curio shops, early Chinese Canadian artist studios, and other sites of cultural encounters, Karen Tam looks at how the corporeal experience of space allows one to understand its history and community. A deep engagement with archival and collections research has led her to question whose histories get to be collected and told, and to interrogate the narratives that have been constructed around the Chinese diaspora. She asks: “How do we remember, represent, support, and simultaneously deny the erasures of our stories, spaces, and community? If there are minimal traces of the existence of an individual or organization, what are ways that this life can be made visible again?” By actively bringing to light overlooked aspects of Chinese Canadian communities and culture through her artwork, her intent is to create counterpoints to accepted canons, official histories, public archives and collections.

BIOGRAPHY

Karen Tam is a Montreal-based artist. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in Cultural Studies (Goldsmiths, University of London). Tam has exhibited her work at the Victoria and Alberta Museum (UK), the He Xiangning Art Museum (China), the Toronto Biennial of art, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Canada), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Canada) and the McCord Museum (Canada), amongst others. Karen Tam was awarded the 2021 Prix Giverny Capital. She was long-listed for the 2010 and 2016 Sobey Art Awards.