Muriel Hasbun

Muriel Hasbun’s expertise as an artist and as an educator focuses on issues of cultural identity, migration and memory. Through an intergenerational, transnational and transcultural lens, Hasbun constructs contemporary narratives and establishes a space for dialogue where individual and collective memory spark new questions about identity and place.

With her work, she constructs her “terruño” or diasporic homeland, creating poetic images oscillating between past and present, absence and presence and here and there. She recovers personal memories and collective histories, often lost or hidden, activating the space across borders, generations, and cultural divides, and enacts culturally responsive and equitable sites of dialogue, healing, learning and community, with a special focus on generating knowledge about Central American art and culture, both in the isthmus and in the diaspora.

The Imprint of Memory – Hand. “When I was 13 years old, a family friend and poet read my palm a couple of times. An intense curiosity would always envelop me upon absorbing Claudia’s mysterious words, of wanting to know my future and understand myself better…

Years went by and I became an artist. The different ethnicities and cultures that run through my veins, and the construction of an identity through photography would become the central theme of my existential search.

After 30 years of working, I can say that I achieved a certain measure of internal peace by accepting the complexity of my multivalent identites (Jewish, Palestinian, Christian, Latina, Salvadoran, French, etc.) --that the world considered “Other” and that at some point I also called “irreconcilable.” I developed my skills and channeled my efforts to forge connections with and between all those identities, hoping to find the gift of understanding and belonging.

With these photographs, I revisit a 2004 self-portrait (“The Imprint of Memory – Hand”), that I made after having finished three bodies of work in which I explored the history of my family. I play digitally with the negatives and photograms made intuitively in the darkroom and I create new images with filters named “Exclusion” and “Difference.” The irony does not escape me, and I smile. Voilà, again, my offering.”

BIO.

Muriel Hasbun (El Salvador, 1961)

Muriel Hasbun’s awards and distinctions include: Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards (Photography and Media), CENTER Santa Fe’s Producer’s and Curator’s Choice awards, Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Howard Chapnick Grant/W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund; a U.S. Department of State/AAM Museums Connect grant; Artist Residences at Chataqua/CU Boulder, Centro Cultural de España, El Salvador, and Escuela de Bellas Artes, Mexico; a Corcoran’s Outstanding Creative Research Faculty Award, and a Fulbright Scholar Grant.

 Hasbun’s work has been internationally exhibited and is in private and public collections at venues such as: American University Museum, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Centro de la Imagen, Civilian Art Projects, Corcoran Gallery of Art, FotoFest, Lehigh University, Light Work, Maier Museum of Art, Mexican Cultural Institute, Museo del Barrio, Museum of Photographic Art, Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles, Smithsonian American Art Museum, University of Texas-Austin, 50th Venice Biennale.

 Building upon her career as a socially engaged artist and a photography professor, Hasbun is currently the founder and director of laberinto projects, a transnational, cultural memory and education initiative fostering contemporary art practices, social inclusion and dialogue in El Salvador and its U.S. diaspora. EDUCA, a visual literacy, professional development program of laberinto projects, nurtures a more equitable and culturally responsive curriculum in U.S. classrooms, through the art of Central America.  

Hasbun is the recipient of numerous distinctions, including: 2019 Trawick Prize Finalist, a 2019 Archive Transformed CU Boulder Artist/Scholar Collaborative Residency, Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in Media (2019 and 2008) and in Photography (2015, 2012), CENTER Santa Fe 2018 Producer’s Choice and 2017 Curator’s Choice awards, a FY17 Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County Artist Project Grant, a 2014 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, the Howard Chapnick Grant of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund for laberinto projects (2014); a Museums Connect grant of the U.S. Department of State and the American Association of Museums (2011-2012); Artist in Residences at the Centro Cultural de España in San Salvador (2016), and the Escuela de Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (2010); the Corcoran’s Outstanding Creative Research Faculty Award (2007) and a Fulbright Scholar Grant (2006-2008).

Hasbun’s photo-based work has been internationally exhibited. Venues include: George Mason University, Brentwood Arts Exchange (2019), Turchin Center for Visual Arts, the Athenaeum (2018); Betty Mae Kramer Gallery, MICA Meyerhoff Galleries (2017); PINTA Miami and Civilian Art Projects (2016); American University Museum (2016, 2008); Centro Cultural de España in San Salvador (2016, 2015, 2006); Smithsonian American Art Museum (2013, 2011); the Maier Museum of Art (2012); Light Work, Mexican Cultural Institute (2011); the MAC-Dallas and Michael Mazzeo Gallery (2010); NYU’s Hemispheric Institute at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires (2007); Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego (2007); Houston’s FotoFest (2006), Corcoran Gallery of Art (2004); 50th Venice Biennale (2003); Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City (1999); Musée de l’Arles Antique at the 29ème Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles (1998).

Her photographs are in numerous private and public collections, including The Whitney Museum of American Art, Art Museum of the Americas, D.C.Art Bank, El Museo del Barrio, En Foco, Lehigh University, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Turchin Center for the Arts, University of Texas-Austin, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Hasbun received a MFA in Photography (1989) from George Washington University where she studied with Ray K. Metzker (1987-88), and earned an AB in French Literature (1983), cum laude, from Georgetown University.