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 interdisciplinary 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 manifest in the present. The resulting two-dimensional, time-based, and performative investigations construct new, fantastical spaces from the residue of loss. 

Ciarrocchi grew up in Westbeth, the artist housing complex in Manhattan's far West Village. Her early career was in dance, and as a child, she studied at the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet Theater School. Ciarrocchi later studied on scholarship at the Merce Cunningham Studio and performed with choreographers such as Hernando Cortez, Fred Darsow, Neil Greenberg, and Janet Panetta. Her multimedia performances were presented at numerous downtown venues, including Danspace Project and The Kitchen.

Ciarrocchi's current work has been exhibited in New York City, as well as nationally and internationally at galleries, museums and performing arts venues such as Abrons Arts Center, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Collar Works, Center for New Music (CA), Equity Gallery, Field Projects, Gibney, Jack, La Bodega Gallery, Longwood Gallery, Main Window Dumbo, Old Stone House, Smack Mellon, Wave Hill, and ZAZ10TS. She has been awarded residencies from the Baryshnikov Arts, Bronx Museum of the Arts, LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture, Loghaven, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, MacDowell, Millay Arts, UCross, Visual Studies Workshop, and Wave Hill. She has received grants and awards from the Bronx Council on the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Franklin Furnace Fund, Jerome Foundation, Map Fund, 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 Bessie, Jeff and TONY-winning projection scenography and design for dance and theater artists such as, Wally Cardona, Ping Chong, David Cromer, Merce Cunningham, Bebe Miller, Donna Uchizono, and Talvin Wilks. 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. Her work is in the Brookfield Properties collection.

SELECTED AWARDS / GRANTS

2024 MAP Fund for LoopCurrent

2024 BRIO Award for Performance Art, Bronx Council on the Arts, Bronx, NY

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 for Mixed Media, Bronx Council on the Arts, Bronx, NY

2020 Foundation for Contemporary Arts, COVID Relief Fund

2019 Trust for Mutual Understanding, New York, NY

2017 Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Emergency Grant

2016 MAP Fund for Gender/Power 

2016 Franklin Furnace Fund

SELECTED RESIDENCIES/FELLOWSHIPS

2025 Baryshnikov Arts, New York, NY

2025 MacDowell, Peterborough, NH

2024 Loghaven Artist Residency, Morristown, TN

2024 Wyspa Art Lab, Artist in Residence, 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

SOLO EXHIBITIONS / PERFORMANCES

2024 Performance, LoopCurrent (work in progress), Between.Pomiędzy Festival, Gdańsk, Poland

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, 14^th 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

2025 Transformative Impact, curated by Lucia Warck-Meister, Longwood Gallery, Bronx, NY (forthcoming)

2024 Group Exhibition, Artistry in Service: A Celebration of Legacy and Dedication, Bronx River Arts Center, Bronx, NY 

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. “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