Karen Dias (33) is currently studying for a Masters in Fine Arts at The New School - Parsons, New York. She is expected to graduate in 2021.
In 2007, Karen completed her Bachelor’s in Mass Media with a major in Journalism at St. Xavier’s University in Mumbai. During her 12 year career as a photojournalist, primarily based in her home-country India, Karen has consistently pursued stories about human rights and environmental issues through a feminist lens.
Karen has worked with a long list of international news outlets (The Washington Post, The Guardian, Bloomberg News, Al Jazeera, BBC, and National Geographic) that have published her work all over the globe. She has documented stories such as state-sponsored fake encounters in the state of Manipur, an anti-mining indigenous resistance movement in Odisha and acid attack survivors in Mumbai among many others.
Through her current studies, Karen is exploring other mediums like sculpture, video and installation whilst continuing her engagement with photography, and to better understand the power and responsibility of the media and to critique structural and cultural biases represented in photography and journalism. In the future, besides continuing her own studio practice, Karen hopes to build a pedagogical approach to improve inclusivity and access to art (through residencies, workshops and educational art programs with schools and universities) especially for young girls and women.
Karen is a rare storyteller and uses this quote by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe to explain her ideology: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
