RPEPARATION(S) FOR A DINNER 2025-2026

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.

The project exists between performance, installation, and social practice, incorporating evolving elements over the course of the exhibition. Hosted in-person or virtually these preparations and rehearshals explore hospitality as a form of dissent. If you wish to receive notifications and invitations please sign up here

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Artist-in-residence and Collaborator with SYP

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. Stay tuned for announcements about upcoming workshops and events with SYP! sign up here to join my mailing list .

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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.

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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, reserve a spot

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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

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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

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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 with 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
*free and open to the public

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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

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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

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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

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THE DESERT PLACEMENTS II

Inventories and Dreamguides. Text and visual placements during a road trip to a California desert at the bombaybeachbiennale.org

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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

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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.

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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

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ART IN OUR BACKYARD

Presenting alongside six women leaders in the local Bay Area art scene at Woman’s Club of Palo Alto. Join me!

The Woman's Club of Palo Alto proudly presents a special Pecha Kucha evening

Art in our Backyard 

Wednesday, November 2, 5:00pm-7:00pm

We are proud to host luminaries from our local art community in a lively and informative Pecha Kucha (Japanese for “chit chat”) style event. Reception to follow. This event is open to club members and the public. by rsvp

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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.

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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

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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.

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OPEN STUDIO WINTER 2021

Open Studio Day 12-4pm, December 4th, 2021, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto CA. For private viewings email

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BREATH

Greece in USA and “The Right to Breath” www.undercurrent.nyc 2019 / UNDERCURRENT / Art Platform / 70 John St. Brooklyn, NY

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