KAREN LOHRMANN combines her background in art and architecture with writing, teaching, editorial and curatorial projects.  She is cofounder of the studio practice SdMKLm, Urban States talks, and Correspondents edition, and initiator of the testing ground Bay of Mars.  Central to her multidimensional practice is the focus on editorial processes as critical and projective tools.  She is interested in territorial and time-based conditions to understand when trends turn into movements, and how immediate environments transition into visual culture.  She is currently based in Rome.

SdMKLm
SdMKLm is the studio practice of Karen Lohrmann and Stefano de Martino.  They address spaces in transformation, cultural manifestations and resultant landscapes.   Their work is exhibited and published internationally.   They have released three monographs and jointly run  Urban States, Correspondents and Bay of Mars.  As part of Bay of Mars, they recently completed the spatial and ecological adjustment and reclamation of a 16th century rural complex and experimental landscape, in the Gulf of Naples.  Their ongoing cycle of works, Waiting Land, was one of the conceptual segments of the FRAC Orléans Biennale, Years of Solitude.

BAY of MARS
Bay of Mars is a multimedia testing ground.   An experimental landscape in its origins, the name is borrowed from a plain, and now extinct location.  Bay of Mars migrates to likewise  and otherwise friendly environments—online, and in the form of spaces, sets, exhibitions, periodicals,  time-based work, unique items, and occasional events.   Marking a broad field of contributors and collaborations, Bay of Mars connects the studio practice SdMKLm with Urban States for research, Correspondents for all printed matter and, most recently, XRX for testing, production, and  outfitting.

PUBLISHING
Karen Lohrmann is coauthor of Update: All Possible Worlds [2008], How We Spent It [2009], and Waiting Land [2017], the editor of Midsize America [2012], and the edition Correspondents [2009—ongoing], and coeditor of the essay collection Clear Skies with Patches of Grey [2003].   More recent publications include essays, reviews, and retrospective scripts—a form of writing derived from the diversity of her practice.  She occasionally also authors or edits zines, posters and other unlimited printed matter.

ACADEMIC
Trained in architecture, art history, and scenic design at Aachen University, ETH Zurich, Zurich University of the Arts, and TU Berlin, she combines these fields throughout her practice.  A mentor, thesis tutor, and frequent guest to art, design and architecture institutions internationally, she has held faculty positions at the Southern California Institute of Architecture Los Angeles, UCLA School of the Arts, Harvard Graduate School of Design, University of Innsbruck, and TU Berlin.