Karen specialises in collaborative work across art forms, usually in settings in which people have in some way found themselves marginalised or at the edges of society and often feeling that they are without a voice.

Work includes projects and residencies with victims of domestic violence, Asian women newly arrived in this country, single and new parents, children and young people vulnerable to sexual abuse, prostitutes and prisoners.

Working with people who have a diagnosis of dementia has occupied most of her time for the last two years during which she has been the holder of an Arts Council England South West individual artist award for her collaborative project Forgetting to Remember. She has set up, with film maker Richard Aylwin, the arts company Margent which acts as a vehicle for their on going creative work. They have published two anthologies of poetry with people who have dementia, The Edges of Everywhere, which they have also produced as a short performance film and Only Just Orchid.