I (karen darricades) am a multidisciplinary artist, educator, writer and independent media producer. I am the host of the #WeMakeMedia podcast, and Co-host of Watch Me Work. I am on the community board of directors at Artivive app and the Head of Arts and Culture for Creative Commons’ Canada chapter.

Since completing my Honours BA in visual arts and linguistics at the University of Toronto in 2004, and a diploma in photography and communications at EFET in Paris, France, I have worked in publishing, art directed films and exhibited my augmented reality, soft sculptures, interactive installation works and wearable art internationally. Recent exhibits include Translunar Formations (2023), Water Wars (Karachi Biennale 2022), and Love Letters (Toronto’s Waterfront 2021).

My art works have been exhibited through Gallery 1313, Luc Sculpture Gallery, The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto Free Gallery, The World of Threads festival: a Common Threads International Exhibit, and commissioned works have been sold through The Textile Museum of Canada's shop. My writing has been published in print through THIS Magazine, HERizons Magazine, Broken Pencil, Nukta Art and Peru This Week, and online at TextileArtist.org

I am currently working with a team of artists, archivists, technologists and philosophers on creating a multi-model AI of Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan. Raising McLuhan will allow folks to be in conversation with Marshall through a series of mixed reality and interactive experiences activating his extensive archive of work and diaries.

My multidisciplinary interactive installations and new media works explore social organizing and cultural narratives as reflected through mainstream culture and language. Responding to and remixing found/archival images, familiar sounds and ubiquitous narratives is the common thread that runs through my work. I am interested in how power works, value-systems are nurtured and ideas are spread through networked technologies. My short-loop frame-animations and video works re-purpose content (paper and digital) in the public domain or creative commons in order to borrow and build on the meaning they carry and interrogate the cultural mythologies they hold.I am interested in human costuming, sentience, non-human intelligence and have a fascination for deep sea creatures and winged-things.

I am the founding Artistic Director of Never Gallery Ready, a non profit delivering arts and STEAM education to young people through schools, libraries and community centres since 2006. Never Gallery Ready was recently awarded the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Arts for Youth Award (2022). I am also the founder of Lit Kit, where I am working with creatives and technologists to create augmented reality edutainment products (maker-kits) that help makers better understand media technology through play. Currently developing boxes all about .gif, AI, XR (augmented and virtual reality), emoji, memes, algorithms and more. To learn more about open calls for commissioned works and get early access to apps and materials, visit litkit.art.