I’m an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Mumbai living in New York City. After a long-term career as a photojournalist, my work shifted to include painting, sculpture and installation. I came to art-making from questioning my role as a documentary photographer and the medium’s extractive qualities and limited capacity to viscerally represent violence, power and suffering, especially its’ often illegible and obscure manifestations in our lives. Through the use of everyday materials and objects like needles, red chillies, salt, safety pins, soot, and burlap among others; my practice explores how physical and psychological elements of interpersonal and state-sanctioned violence can be in-built and circulate through the foundation of our society, at the intersection of where the personal and domestic meet the political and institutional. Exploring these questions leads me to work with materials that are familiar and accessible but are transformed through repetition, appropriation and re-arrangement to indicate danger and tension through conceptualism and abstraction.
Documentary photography: www.karendiasphotography.com
SELECT FELLOWSHIPS/GRANTS/HONORS
Artist in Residence, Woodward Residency, New York, 2023
Artist in Residence, Assets for Artists, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, 2022
Finalist, A.I.R Gallery Fellowship Program, 2021
Artist Talk, Indian Photo Festival, 2021
Judge, Women Building a Better World Photo Competition, Margaret McNamara Education Grants , 2020
Finalist, UC Berkeley MFA South Asia Art Prize, 2019
Grantee, H. Jayadeva Grant for Photography, India, 2019
Nominee, Prix Pictet Award, France, 2018
Panelist, Gender and Pay Gaps in Creative Industries, WeWork Mumbai, India, 2016
Grantee, International Women’s Media Foundation, USA, 2014
Reporting Fellow, Journalist Training Workshop, Himalayan Institute of Climate Adaptation Programme, India, 2013
Finalist, Invisible Photographer Asia, Street Photography Award, 2013
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Women in Photography, Lee Miller and Roland Penrose Farley House and Gallery, Sussex, UK, 2024
Performance Reading, Readings in the Garden, Anonymous Gallery, New York, 2022
No Vacancy, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, New York, 2021
Online Group Exhibition, Art52nd Street, MC Gallery, New York, 2021
05181046324143141713 (a game), 25E Gallery, The New School, New York, 2020
4 Inches Off the Wall, 25E Gallery, The New School, New York, 2019
India, Tisseurs D’Images Festival, Angers, France, 2018
Unsung: Celebrating the Extraordinary Grandeur of Smallness, Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, India, 2017
Anthropocenic Mindscapes, Angkor Photo Festival, Cambodia, 2017
Behind the Portrait, Gulf Photo Plus, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2017
Chennai Photo Biennale, Chennai, India, 2016
Pondy Photo Festival, Pondicherry, India, 2015
Angkor Photo Festival, Siem Reap, Cambodia, 2009
TEACHING APPOINTMENTS
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia University, School of the Arts, New York (Course: Intro Digital Photography), 2024
Adjunct Faculty, International Center of Photography, New York (Continuing Education: Diving into Documentary Photography), 2022
Adjunct Professor, NYU, Tandon School of Engineering, New York (Graduate Course: Theories and Cultural Impacts of Media & Technology), 2022
Lead Teaching Instructor, Josephine Herrick Project: International High School Lafayette (Brooklyn) & Grand Street Settlement/School for Global Leaders (Lower East Side), Courses: Introduction & Principles of Photography, Professional Practice in Photography, 2021-2022
Teaching Assistant, Parsons School of Design, BFA Fine Arts, New York (Course: Creativity & Entrepreneurship), 2021
Teaching Assistant, Parsons School of Design, BFA Fine Arts, New York (Course: 3D Sculpture), 2020
Teaching Assistant, Parsons School of Design, BFA Fine Arts, New York (Course: Group Critique & Visiting Artists Lecture Discussion ), 2020
Guest Lecturer of Photography, St. Xavier’s University, Mumbai, India (Course: Bachelor of Mass Media Course: Introduction to Photography), 2013-2015
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Visual Artist, Independent Photojournalist, Educator, Mumbai & New York (2012-present)
Staff Photojournalist, Gulf News, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (2007-2011)
ASSOCIATED PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Sidney Hillman Foundation (Grant Recipient)
Economic Hardship Reporting Project (Grant Recipient)
International Women’s Media Foundation (Grant Recipient)
Margaret McNamara Education Grants (Grant Recipient & Photo Competition Judge)
BIPOC Photo Mentorship Program (Mentor to Emerging POC Photographers)