Karen Schaefer

Karin Schaefer makes work that explores the power of place, investigating social and cultural landscapes and points of access through creating elaborate mapping systems. She makes drawings and installations that examine cultural geography through mapping her own life as well as the paths of others. She is interested in exposing the ideas of cultural landscape and social play, the patterns that we all weave in and amongst one another as we live our lives. The contemplative practice of exploring her own life through this pantographic model is driven by her interest in the interlacing of diverse cultural imprints.

Schaefer was an artist-in-residence at the Isamu Noguchi Museum, and has had solo exhibitions at David Allen Gallery in Brooklyn New York, and Robert Pearre Fine Art in Tucson Arizona. Select group exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ, City/Space, Oakland, CA, Taxter and Spengemann, Scope Miami, FL. Schaefer created a site-specific installation at the Barbican Galleries in London, and for W/O WALLS, Scope NY ‘04, she created an installation and performance that mapped the cultural geography of the art fair.

“I am now in the research and development phase of a large-scale mapping project. The 911 WTC Mapping Project focuses on an everyday detail of the victims’ lives.This worklooks at the geography of September 11as a lens through which to view each individual in an egalitarian manner. It is made up of drawings representing the discrete routes of each victim; by mapping their starting points on the morning of September 11, the lines follow the train tracks, subway lines, ferry routes, plane courses and roads that all converged at the World Trade Center. Tracing the paths of each individual who worked at, or flew into, the WTC site, the piece explores and witnesses the once living organism of their collective connection to the site. The plates are organized by company and floor, the two towers have been combined in the same piece, alternating every other plate for Tower 1 and Tower 2. The LEF Foundation has provided partial support for the development of the 911 WTC mapping project.”

In addition to continuing to develop the WTC 911 mapping project, Schaefer is working on a shadow mapping series that traces the movement of the silhouettes of flora across the urban landscape of New York. Karin will have a solo show at David Allen Gallery in Los Angeles, CA in the fall.