Karen Tam (born 1977) is a Canadian artist and curator who focuses on the constructions and imaginations of cultures and communities through installations in which she recreates Chinese restaurants, karaoke lounges, opium dens, curio shops and other sites of cultural encounters.
Tam holds a BFA in Studio Arts and Music from Concordia University and an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths (University of London).
[1] Tam's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries such as the Ormeau Baths Gallery (Belfast), Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin), Betty Rymers Gallery and 11th Street Gallery/Columbia College (Chicago), Foster-Tanner Gallery (Tallahassee, Florida), YVZ Artists' Outlet (Toronto), Khyber Centre for the Arts (Halifax), and MAI - Montréal arts interculturels (Montreal).
[2] Karen Tam's video Plum Sauce won the Audience Choice Award at the 2002 Asian American Film Festival in Chicago.
She was a finalist for the Prix Louis-Comtois in 2017 from the Contemporary Art Galleries Association and the Ville de Montréal,[3] a finalist for the Prix en art actuel from the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec in 2016,[4] and long-listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2010[5] and 2016.