5/10: Karen

Karen, editor, publisher and designer of Karen magazine, set up a tearoom near the Casino for the three days of Colophon2009. She served tea and biscuits to visitors, who could also enjoy choice quotes from the four issues of the magazine.

The room was decorated with vigenettes from the magazines, celebrating the ordinary and everyday of British life – the love of pets, the hassle of cleaning, the community noticeboard.

While celebrating the ordinary, Karen also serves as a subtle critique of celebrity life and the way it is reported so slavishly by a genre of magazines. So alongside the extreme ordinary, Karen also used the gallery space to present the four Karens as art pieces on spotlit pedastels, while a seating area placed the magazine with it’s some unlikely yet relevant other publications.