NEW YORK – ARCAthens announced on November 12 the launch of the third ARCAthens Virtual Residency (AVR) featuring Bronx artist Elia Alba and Greek artist Maro Michalakakos, curated by Eleni Riga. The residency will take place November 16 culminating with a Zoom discussion December 19.

ARCAthens developed the AVR program in spring 2020 with the intention to bridge the constraints imposed by the pandemic by offering opportunity and support, inviting artists and curators to challenge their isolation, freely discuss their hopes and fears, and engage in a creative and productive inter-continental dialogue during this period of social distancing and dynamic social activism.

This rendition of the Virtual Residency differs from the last two as the cross-cultural conversation between Alba, in the Bronx, NY, and Michalakakos, in Athens, Greece, will be moderated by contemporary art curator Eleni Riga.

The Fellows’ month-long cross-cultural exchange will be posted daily on Instagram. 

Follow their visual conversation daily through Instagram at @arc_athens. 

The Fellows would love to hear from you! You can also see the conversation on the ARCAthens website, in its archived documentation: https://arcathens.org/about/aa-virtual-residency/arcathens-virtual-residency-3/.

Mark your calendars: The Residency culminates on December 19 with a recorded Zoom conversation which will be open to the public’s participation.

Elia Alba is a multidisciplinary artist, who works in photography, video and sculpture. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College in 1994 and completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 2001. She has exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Science Museum, London; Smithsonian Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, ITAU Cultural Institute, São Paulo; National Museum of Art, Reina Sofía, Madrid and the 10th Havana Biennial. 

Born and raised in Athens, dividing her life between Greece and France, Maro Michalakakos became known through a substantial body of work in which figures and themes emerge in a state of tension. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Greece, Europe, USA, and Turkey and has repeatedly collaborated with important theatrical directors and Institutions for the creation of stage environments (National Theater, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Onassis Stegi, Poreia Theater). Many of her works have been acquired by significant public and private collections (Fonds Nationale d'art Contemporain, Istanbul Modern, D. Daskalopoulous collection, etc.)

Eleni Riga is an independent curator and co-founder of the art & research platform hd.kepler. In 2019-2020, she worked at Adult & Academics Programs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York where she conceived the public program on the intersection of ecology and feminism (Ecología y feminismo) inviting Inés Katzenstein, Director, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America, and Curator of Latin American and the artist Regina José Galindo. Previously she worked as Director of Contemporary Art at Eleusis 2021 European Capital of Culture where she established the artist residency on installation art “Initiator” and as a curatorial assistant at documenta 14 in collaboration with Pierre Bal Blanc.

More information is available online: https://arcathens.org.