Karen Babayan
I am a storytellor of personal and public histories through images created and re-interpreted and words, written and spoken. Exploring the role of nostalgia, mythmaking and archetypes, my research is drawn from fiction, film, creative writing, popular culture, the general media, anthropology and other artists. History, identity and truth are explored through fiction writing, image-making, performance and documentation.
Packing', is a performance piece about exile; 'Blood Oranges Dipped in Salt', a book of fictionalised family stories explores diasporan Armenian identity from the perspective of my own family through handed down stories and personal experience. A rich archive of family photographs is incorporated into new work through projection and a variety of print media. The work evidences the experience of displacement by revisiting the history that has shaped my family in its physical and psychological migration over time and space. My latest project 'Swallows and Armenians' explores the real Armenian family behind Arthur Ransome’s fictional ‘Swallows' and reveals their contribution to the rich cultural landscape of the Lake District.
Born in Tehran, Iran in 1962, of Armenian-British parentage, I came to the UK in 1978 at the age of 16.
'Blood Oranges Dipped in Salt', is published by the Wild Pansy Press, University of Leeds www.wildpansypress.com
Art Education
PhD: Verchatsav! An auto-ethnographic exploration of Armenian–Iranian identity through contemporary art practice. Leeds Beckett University, School of Contemporary Art and Graphic Design 2009-15
M.A. Fine Art, Nottingham Trent University 1988-90
B.A.(Hons.) Graphic Design, Leeds Polytechnic 1982-85
Pre-B.A. Leeds College of Art 1981-82
Selected solo exhibitions
2014 Pages: archive and office, stationary and document, The Tetley, Leeds
2010 Space, Place & Identity, conference exhibition, Leeds Metropolitan University, Broadcasting Place
2002 Objects of Desire, The Hutchinson Art Gallery, Bishop Auckland
1997 The Elizabethan Gallery, Wakefield; Kookoo, Hardware Gallery, London
1996 Lavashak and Other Stories: Huddersfield Art Gallery
1995 Achkov Chudank (Touch Wood), Yervand Kochar Museum & Art Gallery, Yerevan, Armenia; Flight of Fancy Bury Art Gallery & Museum
1994 Flight of Fancy Peterborough City Art Gallery & Lanchester Gallery, Coventry University; Prints; Leeds City Art Gallery
1993 The Bearded Armenian Woman Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston
1992 Stuffed, Fried Fingers Samuel Zacks Gallery, Toronto, Canada; Smallheath Middle School for Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
1991 The City Gallery, Leicester; The Phoenix Arts Centre, Leicester
1990 The Collapsed Blue Canopy of Heaven The University Gallery, Leeds; The Pavilion Art Centre & The Yorkshire Art Circus
Selected group exhibitions
2014 C-Art Cumbria, Battlebarrow House, Appleby
2013 Salon Mashup, Shoreditch Town Hall, London
2011 Home from Home, PAGES, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds
2010 Treasured Objects, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London
2009 Armenian Journey, York Minster
2007 YoMu (York/Münster Exchange), Guildhall, York
2006 Layered Lives, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London
2003 Artsparkle, an exhibition of multiples, Leeds Corn Exchange,
2000 20th Century Religious Art, Wakefield Art Gallery
1999 Bookways, the British Version, The Museum of Foreign Art, Riga, Latvia & Museum of Art, Valmeri, Latvia
1998 Baggage, Four Armenian Artists, Hellenic Centre, London
1997 The Contemporary Print Fair, Catalyst Arts, Belfast
1996 10 - Artists from Leeds, Oviedo, Spain
1994 Contemporary Relief one, Hardware Gallery, London
1993 The Bookmaker III, The Centre for the Book, Birmingham
1992 The Bookmaker II, The Elizabethan Gallery, Wakefield
1991 Nature of the Beast, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham