From November 20th, 2025– December 14, 2025 artist Martha Sakellariou will occupy the David Pace Gallery at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, 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.
MENU FOR A REVOLUTION
An experiential presentation blurs the line between storytelling, performance and installation, and invites you into 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 audience contributions during my 2024 residency and solo exhibition, Revolution Is a Dinner Party, at the Palo Alto Art Center. May 8th 6-7:30 p.m.
ARTIST PRESENTATION - TWENTY WORDS
May 8th 6-7:30 p.m. A performance exploring the key threads of my artistic practice through twenty words. From HOME and MEMORY to CRISIS, SELF-PORTRAITS, MIGRAINES, COLOR , I will share twenty words that shape my creative process and reflect on how I navigate life through art. Cubberley Studios, by RSVP, limited space, book a ticket here
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
Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA
*free and open to the public
REVOLUTION IS A DINNER PARTY - 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 3pm. I will be documenting the process and posting on my instagram account 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 posts and the Palo Alto Art Center website for the participation announcements, updates and info.
May 28 - 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, CA 94306
*free and open to the public / check the Art Center website for public opening hours
ONE HOME ONLY [ITERATIONS]
Come to explore an interdisciplinary, collaborative project created during the pandemic months and presented at the Rinconada library in 2021. Revisit ideas about home and reconnect with the artist, her collaborators and the community at this multimedia, interdisciplinary event that includes an artist’s talk by Martha Sakellariou, a live reading by writer Jennifer Lee and a video excerpt by Kristin Damrow & Company. The event and project has been 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
*free and open to the public
THE DESERT PLACEMENTS I
Inventories and Dreamguides. Text-based placements and in-situ performances that occur during a road trip to a California desert at the bombaybeachbiennale.org
SPRING OPEN STUDIOS
The Cubberley Artist Studio Program (CASP) where I am a selected artist-in-residence since 2018 is hosting its biannual Spring Open Studios! This Saturday, April 13th, from 11 am to 5 pm, all the 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
Cubberley Community Center, Studio E7
4000 Middlefield Rd, Palo Alto, CA
*free and open to the public
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. Palo Alto Art Center Sunday, April 28, 2024 2-3:30pm. Event info and RSVP
THE DESERT PLACEMENTS II
Inventories and Dreamguides. Text and visual placements during a road trip to a California desert at the bombaybeachbiennale.org
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
Exploring choreographies, tensions and oddities in stories of women who perpetually search for a home. An evolving site-specific storytelling that brings together myth, history, dream, reality. In this iteration two women, one mythological and one contemporary, connected to two islands of historical, mythological and environmental significance in Greece and USA are in search of a place to create a safe environment for themselves, for their offspring, for humankind. How does the sea and the land define their fate to protect and survive and what are the findings along the way? The project involves research, documentation and speculation that takes the shape of on-site performances - Fall 2022 to Fall 2023 Greece/USA sites.
WOMEN OF OUR TIMES
Women of Our Times, Draft#9 currently seen at the ICA San Jose 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. The Yellow Wallpaper (2019) performance and installation piece derived from such a process. Read more about that project here
ART IN OUR BACKYARD
Presenting alongside six women leaders in the local Bay Area art scene at Woman’s Club of Palo Alto.
ONE ISLAND ONLY
Exploring ideas of female identity and myths of home in the open space in Maine, USA. Work in progress and a soft launch of an art residency program scheduled for August-September 2023.
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 . Updates posted on instagram
INVENTORIES - A GUIDE STUDY
Exhibiting recent video and text based works about Rituals, Home and Dreams. Narrative sequences exploring the mythologies, utopias and dystopias of home and gender.
OPEN STUDIO WINTER 2021
Open Studio Day 12-4pm, December 4th, 2021, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto CA. For private viewings email
BREATH
Greece in USA and “The Right to Breath” www.undercurrent.nyc 2019 / UNDERCURRENT / Art Platform / 70 John St. Brooklyn, NY
200 MAIN STREET
It’s up! Public art photographic mural exploring the theme of home in relation to Los Altos and the wider area's past and present. An Arts Los Altos project funded by the Los Altos Rotary Club. Made possible with the assistance of the Palo Alto Historical Association, the Los Altos History Museum and the many personal contributions by local residents. On display at 200 Main Street and Third, Los Altos CA