Karen Babayan

Artist – Writer – Curator

Exploring themes of identity and displacement through the writing of fiction, photography, print and performance

Babayan explores diasporan identity through painting, photography, print and multidisciplinary works. Her current project Swallows and Armenians includes a book of short stories, an audiobook, a theatre script, performative works, an exhibition tour, a short film and animation.

Swallows and Armenians – the book is now available to buy at £10 plus p&p here

Swallows and Armenians – the audiobook at £13.79 is available through audible

Blood Oranges Dipped in Salt – a book of short stories about the Armenians of Iran through the prism of the author’s family, is available to buy here

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions

2021 Swallows and Armenians, The Queens Hall, Hexham, Northumberland

2020 Swallows and Armenians Carlisle Contemporary Arts Gallery & Parquet Gallery,The Old Fire Station, Carlisle, Cumbria& Newbiggin Maritime Centre, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland

2019 Swallows and Armenians, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, Cumbria, The Guardian and The Times

2017  Swallows and Armenians, Thorney How, Grasmere, Cumbria, Westmorland Gazette

2014   PAGES: archive and office, stationary and document, The Tetley Centre for Contemporary Art, Leeds

2010   Space, Place & Identity, Leeds Beckett University, Broadcasting Place

2002   Objects of Desire, The Hutchinson Art Gallery, Bishop Auckland

1997   Kookoo, The Elizabethan Gallery, Wakefield &  Hardware Gallery, London

1996   Lavashak and Other Stories: Huddersfield Art Gallery

Artworks

artist’s books – books of fiction – film – performance – oil on canvas – gouache – lino-cut – relief print – heat-press – screen print – photography – digital print on aluminium – stained glass – architectural design commissions – conceptual works