Karen Lohrmann is an urbanist, artist, educator and researcher currently located in Los Angeles. With a focus on urban studies and related scenography, she places her work at the crossroads of disciplines, from site to non-site. In urban context she traces trends, patterns and movements, in landscape she works within the notions of panorama, image and its implicit content. In 2002, she started the Berlin and Los Angeles based collaborative Lorma Marti, with Stefano de Martino. They are the authors of UPDATE: ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS (2008) and HOW WE SPENT IT (2009), and the editors of the periodical CORRESPONDENTS (since 2009). Karen is also the editor of CLEAR SKIES WITH PATCHES OF GREY (2003), with Hugo Beschoor Plug and Kees Christiaanse.

As a faculty member at UCLA she is the coordinator and co-instructor of the CULTURE NOW Project, an immersive investigation into the intersection of public policy, urbanism, contemporary culture, and its spatial manifestations, which launched in 2010 and has since expanded into a nation-wide initiative. She is the editor of MIDSIZE AMERICA, the first issue of the Culture Now Project series of publications, coming out in February 2012. She is also a visiting faculty member at Harvard's GSD. Karen has been a visiting professor at Innsbruck University (2003-10) and an assistant professor at TU Berlin (1998-03). Educated at Aachen University and ETH Zurich, she graduated from the TU Berlin School of Architecture, Urbanism and Society.  She also has a background in scenography and production of time-based media, including both feature length and documentary productions. She teaches, exhibits and lectures internationally, and collaborates with cultural producers as well as architecture, landscape and urban design practices. A DAAD scholarship recipient, she has been awarded numerous project and research grants for her work.