Karen Tam · SHEEN-wah-ZREE

Edited by Ariane De Blois, SHEEN-wah-ZREE is the first comprehensive overview of the art of Karen Tam, a Quebec artist from a Chinese background whose career stretches over two decades. Her work, a critical exploration of chinoiseries and cultural representations of China in the West, draws on history, archives and everyday objects, recreating spaces such as Chinese restaurants, karaoke bars, and opium dens. Widely recognized for her immersive installations, the artist revisits cultural, identity, and diasporic dynamics, challenging stereotypes and the construction of the Orientalist imaginary in an artistic journey that combines intellectual rigour and artistic inventiveness.

The books brings together texts by specialists closely associated with the artist: Alice Ming Wai Jim, Cheryl Sim, Laura Vigo, and Marcel Blouin, who analyze various facets of Tam’s work, ranging from her political engagement, critical humor, use of irony and relationships to questions of identity, authenticity, colonialism and systemic racism.

With graphic design by LOKI, the monograph adopts a dynamic aesthetic in keeping with Tam’s prolific body of work. It comprises nearly 400 illustrations organized into six thematic sections: Family, Exoticism, Archives, Migrations, Community and a Curiosity Cabinet which brings together 372 additional images.