Identity area
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Authorized form of name
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譚嘉文
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Description area
Dates of existence
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.