Bio in brief

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     Karen Ostrom is a cross disciplinary artist working in photography, installation, video and animation. Her work with linear and non-linear narratives has been developing for many years under the umbrella project Holiday in Hope, a fictional fishing village where the characters, all played by Ostrom, are defined by their labour or profession. Initially meant to be metaphors for the human psyche, the characters, over time, began to take on a life of their own initiating project content and direction.  

     Ostrom has received Canada Council for the Arts Grants, the Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography from the Canada Council, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. She is the recipient of numerous residency fellowships, including The MacDowell Colony, Instituto Sacatar in Brazil, Fundación Valparaíso in Spain, and the Elizabeth Foundation in New York City.

      Her work work with photography and visual narratives have been installed, exhibited, and performed in museums, galleries and festivals throughout North & South America, and Europe, including the Liverpool Biennial, Bring to Light; Nuit Blanche on the Brooklyn waterfront and CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto. 

     The first phase of The Lacemaker's Secret, an animation project conceived in Brazil at Sacatar, debuted at BRIC Media in Brooklyn in July of 2017.

     In 2019 five poignant projects from the Holiday in Hope series were featured in the exhibition Prisma at the Museu de Regional Artes in Feira de Santana, Brazil. Installations that filled 4 rooms of the museum brought together work spanning 20 years. This semi-survey of her work was sub-titled Real Illusions.