Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 2024 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
126 photographs : col. ; 8 x 10 cm
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Karen Tam was born in 1977 in Montreal, Quebec. Her roots in Canada trace back to 1907 with the arrival of her great-grandfather from China.
Tam holds a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work as an artist and curator focuses on the constructions and imaginations of cultures and communities, recreating Chinese restaurants, karaoke lounges, opium dens, curio shops and other sites of cultural engagement. Her installations explore how tangible encounters with spaces and objects can offer profound insights into particular locales, historical narratives, and communities, suggesting how such encounters actively influence the portrayal of Chinese identity in North America.
Tam has exhibited her work and participated in residencies in North America, Europe, and China, since 2000. Her exhibition, Swallowing Mountains, presented by the McCord Stewart Museum, received an Honourable Mention at the 2024 Canadian Museums Association Awards. She was the winner of the 2021 Giverny Capital Prize awarded by the Fondation Giverny pour l'art contemporain, a finalist for the 2017 Louis-Comtois Prize, a finalist for the 2016 Prix en art actuel from the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec, and long-listed for the 2010 and 2016 Sobey Art Awards.
Name of creator
Administrative history
First started in 2019, the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA) is a twelve-week event held every two years. It commissions artists to create new works for a city-wide exhibition in dialogue with Toronto’s diverse local contexts.
The third edition of TBA was titled Precarious Joys and curated by Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López. Held from September 21 to December 1 in 2024, it featured work from 36 exhibition artists, including 16 Canadian artists and 20 newly commissioned works in 11 venues across the city.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Records were received directly from Karen Tam in 2025.
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Records in the collection were created in 2024 over the October 26 and 27 weekend through the artist-led public program, Scent of Thunderbolts: Family Portrait Sessions, by artist Karen Tam, for her commissioned installation in the Toronto Biennial of Art.
Members of Chinese Canadian communities in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area were invited to participate in a family photoshoot within Tam’s immersive installation titled Scent of Thunderbolts 雷霆之息. Participants include members of the Toronto Biennial of Art. Portraits were taken by Toronto-based photographer, May Truong.
Scent of Thunderbolts used the form of a Cantonese opera to address Chinese diasporic sonic memory, drawing inspiration from archival collections, studio photography, and conversations with performers and community members to integrate reimagined elements from Cantonese opera, including props, stage settings, backdrops and furniture.
The family portrait sessions evoked the historic San Francisco photo studio, May’s Studio, that photographed Cantonese opera performers throughout the early-to-mid 1900s. The program invited participants to define what family and home meant to them through the act of having their photograph taken. They were asked to consider the meaning of “family” broadly, transcending immediate blood relations to include intergenerational extended families, chosen kin, and those with whom they shared home and time.
As part of Tam’s larger artistic practice and research, the collection of images had the expressed goal of being deposited in a community archive specializing in Chinese Canadian history, with participant consent.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
No further accrual expected.
System of arrangement
Donor's arrangement and file names have been maintained by the archivist.
Participant names and descriptions were supplied and may be accompanied by a legend. Descriptions supplied by the archivist are provided in [square brackets].
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Records are available for consultation in-person only in the reading room. Please contact the archivist to book an appointment.
Some restrictions apply to reproduction (physical and digital) as stipulated by participants.
Conditions governing reproduction
Records are provided for research, private study and educational purposes only.
Copyright remains with the holders. Reproduction for exhibition, publication or commercial use requires permission.
Some restrictions apply to reproduction (physical and digital) as stipulated by participants. Please see archivist for details.
Language of material
English
Script of material
Latin
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Uploaded finding aid
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
Preferred citation:
Scent of Thunderbolts photograph collection (CA CCA F006), Richard Charles Lee Chinese Canadian Archives, University of Toronto Libraries, Special Collections, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Cite items or files according to APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for Archival Documents and Collections: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/archival
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Dates of creation revision deletion
Collection processed and finding aid created by June Chow and Nicole Zhuohua Yang in February 2026.