Karen Elaine Spencer’s work questions use values and investigates how we, as transient beings, occupy the world in which we live. The notion of progress is challenged through the repetition of an action that leads nowhere. Metro-riding, rambling, dreaming, and loitering are among the activities Spencer folds into her practice. A project is sustained over time, often a year, and materials of our day-to-day existence are favored. Through a détournement of materials or intentions, Spencer intervenes into specific places, where she marks and is marked by spatial and social geographies. A current project, “hey! mike” the blog, is part of a multifaceted conversation with Mike Bloomberg, the 108th mayor of New York City. Here she questions a system whereby one person can be held up as a philanthropist without a basic acknowledgement of a deep lack of justice between all humans because “no one gets rich alone.”

Karen Elaine Spencer lives and works in Montreal, Québec, Canada. Since 2008, she has been active in a postcard and web-based project entitled Transient Traces, where she steals the words of others to then send these words to politicians and public figures. Her practice oscillates between work in the street, exhibitions in galleries, and disseminations via the web. In 2011, she curated the program Gosser le Furtif at Galerie Skol, Montreal. Her text for the performance group TRAFIC was published in the catalog “Lost and found/Les Bureau des Objets Trouvés,” and she was an artist in residence at The John Snow House in Calgary, Alberta. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and Europe. She is the recipient of the 2012 Powerhouse Prize.