Embodied Meanings: An Artist Conversation with Karen Lofgren in the PRS Library
Realized in collaboration with the Philosophical Research Society, and in conjunction with the Speaking in Tongues exhibition at ICA LA, featured artist Karen Lofgren, will join artist, writer, and filmmaker Elizabeth T. Vazquez for a discussion reflecting on Lofgren’s work and artistic approach to the spiritual. Taking place in the acclaimed Philosophical Research Society library, Lofgren will make selections from the library collection, illuminating the thinkers and philosophers who inspire her work.
Karen Lofgren is a Los Angeles-based, Canadian visual artist, whose feminist and decolonial research centers on time, the living world: ritual, history, medicine, and how our cultural systems connect to other wild systems. Her monograph: emBRUJAda: Charms for the Living was published by Set Margins’ press in 2023. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, Pollock-Krasner Grantee, was Fulbright Core Scholar at UAL, Central St. Martins College, and is a Canada Council for the Arts grantee. Exhibitions include The Americas Society, NY; Palm Springs Art Museum; High Desert Test Sites; LACMA; Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin; OCAD University; Pitzer Art Galleries; RCA London; and LACE.
E.T. Vazquez is a first-generation Mexican-American artist, writer, filmmaker, and astrologer from the San Fernando Valley. They studied anthropology, philosophy, and photojournalism at Moorpark College before studying cinematography and receiving a BA in Film Production at the Arts University at Bournemouth in the U.K. From 2021 to 2022, they were an artist-in-residence at The Philosophical Research Society where they exhibited their first solo multimedia show, mano de dios: the nonsense continues. In 2022, they graduated from the American Film Institute Conservatory with an MFA in Screenwriting. In 2025, they were one of ten directors selected for the Netflix-supported Latino Film Institute (LFI) Inclusion Fellowship. They are also a 2026 NORWAC (Northwest Astrological Conference) Diversity Scholarship recipient. ETV’s work often incorporates off-beat relationships between text and image while exploring “otherness.” Their narrative film work is character-driven and combines genr ...
Prior to the construction of the library, Philosophical Research Society founder Manly P. Hall had been writing, lecturing and attracting the attention of wisdom seekers from across the country. Generous donations from philanthropists and supporters enabled Mr. Hall to visit great auction houses of Europe to purchase rare manuscripts and sourcebooks printed prior to 1800, which added to the growing collection of the wisdom library. It is a collection so impressive that during World War II, The Library of Congress requested permission to make microfilm copies of unique items for permanent record, in case the library should be damaged by bombardment.
The library collection grew book by book, building on the great truths of illuminated thinkers such as Pythagoras, Plato, Buddha, Confucius, Hermes, Aristotle, Jesus and Mohammed; along with other prophets and sages. The emphasis of the collection has always been upon those idealistic systems of knowledge which have helped to build a better world. The whole purpose of this collection is to meet society’s increasing awareness of the need for an internal philosophy. Here the great seers, sages, scholars, and mystics are made available through their own writings, and need not be approached only through books of modern interpreters. The bulk of the collection focuses on Philosophy, Psychology, Mythology, Anthropology, Religion and World Cultures.
