Muriel Hasbun

Muriel Hasbun was born in 1961 in San Salvador, El Salvador, but she originated from a multicultural background. Her father, Antonio Hasbun Z., was a Salvadoran-born dentist and amateur photographer of Christian Palestinian descent. His family left Bethlehem at the beginning of the 20th century, escaping from the Ottoman army conscription during World War I. Similarly, her mother, Janine Janowski, whose family was originally from Poland, was born in France and survived the Nazi regime and the Holocaust by hiding in Auvergne, France. She later immigrated to El Salvador in 1958, serving as a teacher for the children of the French consul. In 1979, Hasbun left El Salvador at the onset of the Salvadoran Civil War. The artist lived in Paris for her first year of college, but moved to Washington, D.C., where she graduated with a degree in French Literature from Georgetown University and pursued a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the George Washington University.

Muriel Hasbun’s career is marked by her long-standing trajectory at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at the George Washington University. Currently, Hasbun is a professor Emerita at GWU, where she previously served as professor and Chair of Photography. The photographer also expanded her academic influence as a visiting artist at prestigious universities. She served as the 2021-2022 Estelle Lebowitz Endowed Visiting Artist at Rutgers University with her photograph series Seismic Traces. Muriel Hasbun is a recipient of many awards, including the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, the Howard Chapnick Grant of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund for laberinto projects (2014); a Museums Connect grant funded by the U.S. Department of State and the American Association of Museums (2011-12); the Corcoran’s Outstanding Creative Research Faculty Award (2007) and a Fulbright Scholar Grant (2006-2008).

In 2012, following her mission as an educator, Hasbun founded Laberinto Projects, a cultural initiative focused on fostering art practices and education by exploring issues of migration, transnational identity, and social inclusion. The project is based in El Salvador, and it provides a framework for cultural studies through archives, including the collections of Galería el Laberinto during the Salvadoran Civil War. The Laberinto Projects initiative hosts residency programs, including a series of workshops with the assistance of the Master Artist Muriel Hasbun.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Whitney Museum of American Art Smithsonian American Art Museum