Karen Toro
Women Photograph
Quito, Ecuador
Karen Toro is a freelance Ecuadorian photojournalist, visual storyteller, and educator whose work explores the intersections of territory, memory, power, and resistance. Through documentary and research-based practices, she engages with Indigenous and rural communities confronting extractive economies, gender-based violence, and structural injustice across Latin America.
Her work has been exhibited in Uruguay, Scotland, the United Kingdom, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina. She is a recipient of the Jorge Mantilla Ortega Award for Photojournalism, an Honorable Mention at Ecuador’s Eugenio Espejo National Award, and a National Geographic Society Emergency Fund for Journalists grant, and was a finalist for the Brazil Emerging Art Award (2019).
She is a member of Women Photograph and Diversify Photo, and has collaborated with international media, institutions, and human rights organizations including Reuters, Bloomberg, EL PAÍS, BirdLife International, UN Women, UNESCO, Amazon Watch, Amazon Frontlines, United Nations University, Amnesty International, and UNHCR.
2024 - Eugenio Espejo Journalism National Award., 2022 - Jorge Mantilla Ortega Journalism Award , 2022 - Arts, Culture and Innovation Promotion Fund, 2020 - MUFF – Caminos Conjuntos Program, 2020 - National Geographic Emergency Fund for Journalists, 2019 - Brazil Emerging Art Award
- Breaking news
- Conflict
- Corporate
- Crisis
- Editorial
- Environment
- Interior
- Interview
- Portrait
- Reporting
