Photo: Joanna Eldredge Morrissey
Maya Ciarrocchi is a Canadian American artist whose work excavates vanished and inaccessible histories, themes embedded in her Ashkenazi ancestry and Queer identity. Her previous career as a dancer/choreographer and theatrical designer allowed her to work across disciplines, from site-specific performance to large-scale projections in traditional and experimental theatrical venues. These past experiences inform Ciarrocchi's post-disciplinary studio practice, which includes mixed-media, alternative-process photography, video, and movement-based performance. By combining personal and historical narratives with spatial and embodied mapping, Ciarrocchi uncovers buried pasts and highlights how these erasures are felt in the present. The resulting two-dimensional, time-based, and performative investigations construct new, fantastical spaces from the residue of loss.
Maya Ciarrocchi's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has been awarded residencies from the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Bronx Museum of the Arts, LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, MacDowell, Millay Arts, UCross, Visual Studies Workshop, and Wave Hill. She has received grants and awards from the Bay and Paul Foundation, Bronx Council on the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Franklin Furnace Fund, Jerome Foundation, Map Fund, Mertz Gilmore, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Puffin Foundation, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. In addition to her studio practice, Ciarrocchi has created award-winning projections design for dance and theater.
Ciarrocchi earned an MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, and a BFA in Dance from Purchase College, Purchase, NY.
SELECTED AWARDS / GRANTS
2024 New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artist Award
2023 Canada Council for the Arts, Research and Create
2023 Bronx Cultural Visions Fund/Bronx Council on the Arts/Howard Gilman Foundation
2022 Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation USArtists International Grant
2022 Puffin Foundation
2021 City Artist Corps Grant, New York, NY
2020 BRIO Award, Bronx Council on the Arts, Bronx, NY
2020 Foundation for Contemporary Arts, COVID Relief Fund
2019 Trust for Mutual Understanding, New York, NY
2019 Bay and Paul Foundation Project Grant for Gender/Power
2019 Mertz Gilmore Project Grant for Gender/Power
2017 Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Emergency Grant
2016 MAP Fund
2016 Franklin Furnace Fund
SELECTED RESIDENCIES/FELLOWSHIPS
2024 Jentel Artist Residency, Banner, Wyoming
2024 Between.Pomiędzy Festival, Artist in Residence, Gdańsk, Poland
2024 Wyspa Art Lab, Sobieszewska Island, Gdańsk, Poland
2022 LMCC Arts Center on Governors Island Residency, NY
2022 Visual Studies Workshop Project Space Residency, Rochester, NY
2020 Winter Workspace, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
2019 MacDowell, NEA Fellowship, Peterborough, NH
2019 Equity b[x] Residency Fellow Program, New York, NY
2019 Sichów Educational Foundation Artist in Residence, Sichów, Poland
2019 Gibney Moving Towards Justice Fellowship, New York, NY
2019 Laboratory for Jewish Culture, LABA Fellowship, New York, NY
2018 Works on Water Artist Residency, Governors Island, NY
2018 Millay Arts, Artist in Residence, Austerlitz, NY
2017 Artist in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY
2015 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Process Space Residency, New York, NY
2015 Baryshnikov Arts Center Residency, New York, NY
SOLO EXHIBITIONS / PERFORMANCES
2023 Performance, Site: Yizkor/King Manor, King Manor Museum, Jamaica, NY
2022 Solo Exhibition/Performance, Site: Yizkor, Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Norman Rothstein Theatre, Vancouver, BC, Canada
2022 Solo Exhibition, Muscota, Mosholu, Tibbetts Brook, Wave Hill House, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
2022 Performance, Site: Yizkor, Sichów Educational Center, Sichów Duży, Poland
2022 Performance, Site: Yizkor, Roza Centre, Ruszcza, Poland
2021 Solo Exhibition, Site: Yizkor, Equity Gallery, New York, NY
2020 Performance, Site: Yizkor, Bronx Museum of the Arts Block Gallery, New York, NY
2019 Solo Exhibition, Site: Yizkor, The Gallery at the 14th St. Y, New York, NY
2018 Performance, Site Yizkor, Reimagine Festival NYC, The Theater at the 14th Street Y, New York, NY
2018 Solo Exhibition, Site: Sorel, Kinescope Gallery, New York, NY
PUBLIC ART PROJECTS
2021 Rivers, Dreams, Invisible Cities, Main Window Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY
2021 Rivers, Dreams, Invisible Cities, Installation, Governors Island, NY
2021 This Place Has a Body, Mural, 14th Street Y, New York, NY
2021 This Place Has a Body, LED Video Billboard and Lobby Gallery Installation, ZAZ10TS, New York, NY
2020 A Remedy for a Constitutional Crisis, reading of the US Constitution, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY
2017 A Remedy for a Constitutional Crisis, reading of the US Constitution, Abrons Art Center, New York, NY
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Group Exhibition, Picturing the Constitution, curated by Katherine Gressel, Old Stone House, Brooklyn, NY
2023 Group Exhibition, Streamline, King Manor Museum, Jamaica, NY
2022 Group Exhibition, Geographies of the Self, curated by Deborah Yasinsky, Longwood Gallery, Bronx, NY
2021 Group Exhibition, Paper Works, CB Gallery, Katonah, NY
2021 Group Exhibition, Works on Water Triennial, Governors Island, NY
2020 Group Exhibition, From Dark to Light: A Holiday Celebration, Jason McCoy Gallery, Artsy
2020 Group Exhibition, Reclaimed, Reimagined, curated by David Rios Ferreira, Field Projects, New York, NY
2020 Group Exhibition, Bound up Together: On the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment, curated by Rachel Gugelberger, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY
2020 Group Exhibition, Collar Works Flat File, curated by Jessica Cannon, Collar Works, Troy, NY
2020 Group Exhibition, Art Off-Screen, curated By Eileen Jeng Lynch, International
2019 Group Exhibition, It Could Be You: Portraiture in a Constructed World, Equity Gallery, New York, NY
2019 Group Exhibition, Rendering Likeness, La Bodega Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2017 Group Exhibition, AIM Biennial, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY
COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
2019 Performance, Site: Yizkor, collaboration with Andrew Conklin, Center for New Music, San Francisco, CA
2016 Performance, Gender/Power Composition IV, collaboration with Kris Grey, JACK, Brooklyn, NY
2016 Performance, Gender/Power Composition IV, collaboration with Kris Grey, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY
LECTURES/WORKSHOPS
2022 Lecture, Site: Yizkor, Conney Conference on Jewish Arts, U. of Wisconsin-Madison, March 29.
2020 Workshop, Gender/Power, Gibney, New York, NY, Nov 30 - Dec 2.
2020 Lecture/Presentation, Yizkor: Art & Memory, Jewish History Museum, Tucson, AZ, November 5.
2020 Workshop, Gender/Power, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN, October 29 - 30.
2020 Workshop, Gender/Power, Gibney, New York, NY, July 30 - August 1.
2020 Lecture, Gender/Power, Stonewall National Museum & Archives, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, June 9.
2020 Lecture/Presentation, Virtual Studio Visit Network with Wave Hill, New York, NY, May 18.
2018 Lecture/Presentation, Union College, Schenectady, NY, May 21.
2016 Workshop, Gender/Power, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, November 10 – 20.
PUBLICATIONS
Ciarrocchi, Maya. “The Things They Carried: “What Would You Bring?”, Canvas Compendium (December 23, 2021)
Ciarrocchi, Maya. “Excerpt-Site: Yizkor”, Jewish Book Council PB Daily (November 22, 2021)
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/excerpt-site-yizkor
Ciarrocchi, Maya. “Artists on Artists: Maya Ciarrocchi”, Canvas Compendium (June 22, 2021) https://bycanvas.org/2021/06/24/artists-on-artists-maya-ciarrocchi/
Ciarrocchi, Maya and Grey, Kris. “Artwork: Gender/Power” Art Journal Vol. 76, nos. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2017): 86-87.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Weiner, Mikhal. "In Queens, a Jewish mourning ritual inspires a performance about memory." NY Jewish Week, May 18, 2023.
Ramsay, Cynthia. “Reimagining together.” Vancouver, Canada, The Jewish Independent, November 11, 2022.
Lassauze, Raphael. “Mosholu breaks through, finding daylight in project.” Riverdale Press, May 10, 2020.
Handelsman, Amy. “Filling the Spaces of the Dead.” LabaJournal, March 12, 2019.
Gibney Launches New Art and Social-Justice Initiative, ArtForum, January 30, 2019.
O'Connell, Mark. “Don't Just Ask Bruce Jenner for Answers, Ask Yourself.” Psychology Today, May 1, 2015.
Siegling, Max. “Sharing a Queer Gaze: Gender/Power (composition II) at Gibney.” Culturebot, April 6, 2015.
Hope, Eric. “WPA Select.” East City Art Reviews, February 12, 2015.
Johnson, Paddy, Kimball, Whitney, Vainsencher, Gabriela, “Art F City’s Guide to (e)merge: A Fair with a Local Focus.” Art F City, October 2, 2013.
Vainsencher. Gabriela. “Why You Should Go To The Governors Island Art Fair.” Art F City, September 16, 2013.
Merry, Stephanie, “Paradise Lost, Found and Reconsidered.” The Washington Post, 2012.
COLLECTIONS
Brookfield Properties
EDUCATION
MFA Computer Art, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
BFA Dance, Purchase College (SUNY), Purchase, NY