Last winter’s observations at the David Pace Gallery, ICA San José, move north. Preparation(s) for a Dinner 2025–2026 unfold as a Trilogy, featuring new study objects found onsite and respond directly to the host space at Pallas. The work continues my inquiry into repurposing the mundane—a quest for the familiar, the unexpected, the small revolutions in times of uncertainty and anticipation. Installation, performance, and print-works on view and available by appointment. Join my mailing list to receive full details and invitations for the project’s run throughout March and April 2026.
Preparations for a Dinner 2025-2026 @ICA San José
From November 20th, 2025– December 14, 2025 artist Martha Sakellariou will occupy the David Pace Gallery at the Institute of Contemporary Art San José, as both resident and agitator, transforming the space into a site of contemplation and quiet insurrection. Preparation(s) for a Dinner 2025–2026 continues Sakellariou’s ongoing Revolution is a Dinner Party series. The table remains unset, gestures are incomplete, and anticipation hangs in the air. Visitors encounter a space where acts of care, labor, and waiting become political gestures. On Friday, December 5th at 7:30pm, a symbolic meal will be shared as a gesture and a promise for a revolutionary dinner to come.
SYP artist-in-residence
The Sunnyvale Youth Philharmonic Orchestra has invited me to be the artist-in-residence and collaborator for the SYP Art + Music Program during the 2025–26 season. This autumn, I led a workshop titled Unlearning Carmen, inviting members of the South Bay community to engage with Georges Bizet’s Carmen libretto text as raw material — to extract, fragment, and recompose its language into new constellations of meaning. It is a great joy to work with young musicians and the community. Join my mailing list for announcements about upcoming workshops and events with SYP.
Menu for a Revolution
An experiential presentation blurs the line between storytelling, performance and installation, and invites the public to a participatory, imaginative exploration of the dinner table as a platform for rituals, gestures, and conversations. Take a seat at the artist’s table and engage with a menu of collected ideas inspired by contributions during her 2024 artist residency and solo exhibition, Revolution Is a Dinner Party, at the Palo Alto Art Center. May 8th 6-7:30 p.m.
Self Portrait as a Dinner - Artist Talk and Presentation
A performance, a Self Portrait as a Dinner, exploring the key threads of my artistic practice through twenty words and edible thoughts. From Home and Memory to Crisis, Self-Portraits, Migraines, Color and everything in between is in the menu of this imaginary table. I will share in a performance and culinary format twenty main ideas that shape my creative process and reflect on how I navigate life through art. Studio E7, limited spaces, RSVP to reserve a spot. May 8th 6-7:30 p.m.
Revolution is a Dinner Party
Starting May 28th until June 21st, I will be moving into the Glass Gallery at the Palo Alto Art Center as an artist-in-residence. During this period I will be working on a solo exhibition that opens June 21st, and includes a multimedia installation, a performance act for two dancers and concludes with a culinary participative event August 17th. The project is the launchpad for a wider and longer-term initiative that explores the potential of a domestic space and in particular the dinner table to provide a platform that can spark ideas and conversations about resistance, protest and revolution. The public engagement programming will invite talks, workshops, events and impromptu acts that evolve over time and will form a dynamic art publication with contributions from curators, sociologists, artists and writers. Information about the main and satellite events, locations and participative workshops will be shared here, on my instagram account and at the Palo Alto Art Center website and newsletter. Links to book specific events visit the Palo Alto Art Center website May 28 - August 18, 2024 I Live performance June 21st, 7p.m.
Artist in Residence
You can observe the Revolution is a Dinner Party installation progress as it happens in real time at the Palo Alto Art Center, see me working on-site and meet me during the scheduled engagement and workshop times on Mondays June 3, 10, 17 and on Wednesdays June 5, 12, and 19 from noon to 3p.m. I will be documenting the process and posting details about the exhibition programming and events. If you are not able to visit in-person but wish to participate you can contribute to the installation content virtually, by DM or email. Check my instagram updates and the Palo Alto Art Center website for the participation announcements, updates and info. May 28 to June 21 2024
Meet the artist Monday June 5, 12, 19 noon-3pm and Wednesday June 5, 12 and 19 from 12-3pm Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Rd, Palo Alto
One Home Only [Iterations]
One Home Only [Iterations] is an interdisciplinary project created during the pandemic months at the Rinconada Library in 2021. Join this presentation and screening to revisit ideas about home and reconnect with the artist, her collaborators, and the community. This multimedia, interdisciplinary event includes an artist’s talk by Martha Sakellariou, a live reading by writer Jennifer Lee, and a video excerpt featuring the project’s dance, music, and reading performances.. The event and project is funded by the City of Palo Alto Public Art program and supported by the City of Palo Alto Libraries. Information about the project here. Info and registration here Sunday, May 12, 4-6pm Rinconada Libdrary, Palo Alto, CA
[the dessert placements]
Inventories and Dreamguides. Text-based placements and in-situ performances that occur during a road trip to a California desert at the bombaybeachbiennale.org
CASP Spring Open Studio
The Cubberley Artist Studio Program (CASP), where I have been an artist-in-residence since 2018, is hosting its biannual Spring Open Studios! This Saturday, April 13th, from 11 am to 5 pm, all studios will be open to the public. I will be in Studio E7, hope to see you there! Info about the program here Saturday, April 13, 11am - 5pm, Studio E7
Women in the Arts: a conversation
Join us at the Palo Alto Art Center for a lively conversation that celebrates the artistic process: the achievements and challenges of women in the arts, looking at the past, present, and future. Presented by Kathryn Roszak Artistic Director of Dance Lumiere and the Palo Alto Art Center is visual artist Martha Sakellariou, Yuan Yuan Tan, Chinese ballerina and former Principal Dancer with San Francisco Ballet and Mary Chun opera director. Supported by John and Susan Diekman and the Friends of Dance Lumiere. Palo Alto Art Center Sunday, April 28, 2024 2p.m. Event info and RSVP
CASP Fall Open Studio
Work in progress at Cubberley Artist Studio Program, Saturday 12 November, 11-4pm 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto CA. I will be sharing my current project documentation in the form of an installation. See you then! Find out about participating artists and the program here
One Island Only [Iterations]
This project explores the choreographies, tensions, and oddities within the stories of women in perpetual search of a home. It is an evolving, site-specific narrative that weaves together myth, history, dream, and reality. In this iteration, two women—one mythological and one contemporary—are linked to islands of historical and environmental significance in Greece and the USA. Both are searching for a place to create a safe environment for themselves, their offspring, and humankind. How do the sea and the land define their fate to protect and survive? What is discovered along the way? Through research, documentation, and speculation, this project takes the form of on-site performances across Greek and American sites from Fall 2022 to Fall 2023.
Women of our Times
Women of Our Times, Draft#9 currently seen at the ICA San José Annual Benefit Auction, is from a series of works titled Erasures that emerge through a process of elimination. Parts of images or texts are erased to reveal new meanings or hide unwanted ones. Often these works are drafts or preparatory sketches that lead to larger pieces of works, installation and performances. Join the ICA SJ Auction to see the piece in person, by RSVP @ICA San José
On-Site studies and rituals
Site-specific studies for the durational project One Island Only. A narrative sequence that follows on One Home Only Iterations (spring 2022) exploring personal, collective and cultural mythologies of Home and Woman. The series of public performative pieces has been taking place on island and waterfront locations in the SF Bay Area natural reserves, selected island locations in Greece and will reach the US West Coast in Maine in the Fall of 2022
Inventories - study guide
Exhibiting recent video and text based works about Rituals, Home and Dreams. Narrative sequences exploring the mythologies, utopias and dystopias of home and gender. Join me June 4th at Studio E7 12-5p.m
CASP Winter open studio - talk
Breathing to the East - video performance
Greece in USA and The Right to Breath www.undercurrent.nyc 2019 / UNDERCURRENT / Art Platform / 70 John St. Brooklyn, NY
200 Main Street [an inventory of time and space]
200 Main Street [an inventory of time and place] is a participatory project built from objects, photographs, ideas, and personal accounts contributed by Los Altos residents about what home means to them. Drawing from original photographs, community contributions, and historical materials from local and regional museums, the project takes the form of a 30-foot-long photographic mural installed on a public wall. Composed to resemble the interior of a home, the mural stretches across the façade at 200 Main Street, Los Altos, California, transforming the site into a shared portrait of place and memory. The project was supported by Arts Los Altos and funded by the Los Altos Rotary Club. Full article by Heather Zimmerman
One Home Only
Over three weekends, the exterior walls of the Rinconada Library in Palo Alto becomes both canvas and stage for text, images, and pop-up performances exploring the many meanings of home. An author, a cellist, and two dancers will respond in their own creative languages, offering interpretations of home—its comforts, tensions, and contradictions. Each performance grows from a different constellation of words and images, revealing a shifting, multifaceted story of what home can be.
Curation and artworks by Martha Sakellariou
Performances:
Jennifer Lee spoken word , May 8th
Gaby Li, cello, May 15th,
Kristin Damrow Company, May 22nd
The project is funded by the Palo Alto Public Art program and supported by the Rinconada Library.