Karen Zalamea holds an MFA from Concordia University, Montreal, and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver. Zalamea’s photographic practice critically considers the medium’s methodologies and materials to attend to issues of memory, inheritance, place and identity. She is the recipient of the 2025 Barbara Spohr Memorial Award for Photography from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Alberta, and the 2023 Prefix Prize from the Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions and as public art projects across Canada and internationally. She was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, by immigrant parents from the Philippines, and now resides in Burnaby, on the ancestral and unceded homelands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples.
The artist acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council.
