Koyoltzintli (formerly known as Karen Miranda Rivadeneira) explores the relationships between humans and nature through factual and fictional narratives inviting us into a fantastical world. Rivadeneira' photographic projects investigate identity and intimacy by threading personal and collective narratives centered in Indigenous myths, animism, memory, oppression, and nature.
Koyoltzintli (Karen Miranda Rivadeneira) was born in New York City in 1983 and raised in both the United States and Ecuador. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts and holds a post-graduate degree for her studies in photography at the Danish School of Journalism. Nominated for Prix Pictet in 2019, her work has been exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, SC, the United Nations, and the Photographic Museum of Humanity, among others. She has been an artist in residence in the US, France, and Italy and has taught photography at the California Institute of the Arts and the City University of New York. Koyoltzintli has received multiple awards and fellowships including the Photographic Fellowship at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, the New York Foundation for Arts Fellow in Photography, and the Individual Artist grant by the Queens Council of the Arts. Her first monograph Other Stories/Historias Bravas was published in 2017 by Autograph ABP. Her work was featured in the Native America issue of Aperture Magazine (no. 240) last fall and was included in the book Latinx Photography in the United States by Elizabeth Ferrer published this year in January.