Photo: Lisa Reisman – Eve & Ray Eighth Street

In The Places We Belong:
Documentary and Street Photography

Karen Marshall

Chair of The Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism Program
International Center for Photography

New York photographer Karen Marshall documents social issues. By focusing on the psychological lives of her subjects, she has worked on a series of visual stories that contemplate familial relationships and convey ideas about people and place within the cultural landscape.

Her seminal project, Between Girls, articulates the coming of age of a group of urban middle class teenagers, following them from high school into adulthood 30 years later.

The book of Between Girls was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2021.

In her documentary journey Marshall also has witnessed the struggling identity of a group of Navajo Indians and the demise of their earth-based culture in Caretakers of the Earth: Navajo Resistance and Relocation. She often directs her camera at family life, including her Pennsylvania Dutch in-laws’ clan in a series titled Pennsylvania In-Laws. In Still, Standing, a series begun in 2013, she explores the Polish landscape that her grandparents left behind when they emigrated to the United States in the early 1920’s.

Marshall is the recipient of artist fellowships and sponsorships through the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as grants and support from private foundations. Her photographs have been exhibited in the United States, the Philippines, British Columbia, Israel, Colombia, and China, and are part of several collections, including the Feminist Artbase at The Brooklyn Museum.

Her images have appeared in publications in the United States, Europe, and Asia such as The Washington Post, CNN, ID Vice, Buzzfeed, Konbini Arts, Juxtapoz, Photobook Journal, L’Oeil de la Photographie, NPR Picture Show, Blind Magazine, Vanity Fair, GUP Magazine among others.

Her work as a freelance photographer spans many genres. Marshall’s distinctive style captures meaningful moments within a narrative frame. She has photographed for editorial, corporate, non-profit, and advertising clients for more than twenty-five years in Europe, South Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Marshall is an expert at visual storytelling with a thriving consulting business assisting photographers, foundations, and small companies in the creation of visual narratives.

Marshall is the Chair of the fulltime Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism Program at The International Center of Photography where she has been on the faculty for more than 20 years. She is an Associate Professor (Adjunct) at New York University, mentors MFA candidates at the Maine Media Workshops, and teaches independent workshops in the United States, China, Germany, Italy, and Columbia. Marshall holds an MFA in New Media (Transart Institute/Donau Universitat Krems, Austria).

Participating Artists

Event Dates

Exhibition:
November 10 – December 11, 2026

Opening Reception:
November 12, 2026 7:00-9:00pm ET

Virtual Artist Talk:
TBD