TEAM
Katya Grokhovsky
Founding Director and Chief Curator
Katya Grokhovsky was born in Ukraine, raised in Australia and is based in NYC. She is an artist, independent curator, educator and a Founding Director of The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB). Grokhovsky holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a BFA from Victorian College of the Arts and a BA (Honors) in Fashion from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Grokhovsky has received support through numerous awards including EFA Studio Studio Program, SVA MFA Art Practice Artist in Residence, Kickstarter Creator in Residence, Pratt Fine Arts Department Artist in Residence, Art and Law Fellowship, MAD Museum Studios Program, BRICworkspace Residency, Ox-BOW School of Art Residency, Wassaic Artist Residency, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Studios at MASS MoCA, VOX Populi Curatorial Fellowship, NARS Residency, Santa Fe Art Institute Residency, Watermill Center Residency, Brooklyn Arts Council Grant, NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship, ArtSlant 2017 Prize, Asylum Arts Grant, Australia Council for the Arts ArtStart Grant, Freedman Traveling Scholarship and others. She has curated over 25 exhibitions and events, including Art in Odd Places NYC 2018: “BODY” and “Call of the Wild: Pioneers, Rebels and Heroines” at Vox Populi and more. Her work has been exhibited extensively. Photo by Lauren Renner for Kickstarter, PBC.
Katherine Adams
Exhibition Manager
Katherine Adams is an arts professional and emerging curator based in New York City. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Yale University, where she also undertook research in critical theory. She worked previously as a Curatorial Associate for the SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and prior to that interned with galleries David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth. Outside of these settings, she also works directly with artists to develop editorial and curatorial projects. Her research and curatorial interests center on performance, notions of artistic research, and time-based media work.
Anna Mikaela Ekstrand
Curatorial Advisor
Anna Mikaela Ekstrand is a Swedish/Guyanese independent curator based in New York City. Anna Mikaela served as co-/curator for ’Is This Intimacy?’ (Krinzinger Projekte, 2019) and the performance art events 'Tales Of Tales' (106 Rivington, 2018), ’Grebnellaw: Sperming The Planet' (House of Yes and The Oculus, 2018), and 'Your Decolonizing Toolkit' (MAW, 2016). She has held curatorial positions at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim, Bard Graduate Center, and Museum of Arts and Design. Anna Mikaela is the founding editor-in-chief of Cultbytes. Currently, Anna Mikaela serves as an advising curator for the inaugural 'The Immigrant Artist Biennial' and as a co-curator for its Open Call exhibition to be held in New York Spring-Summer 2020, she has contributed with an essay on performance art(ists) forthcoming in Institution is Verb: PPL Lab Site 2012-2018 (The Operating System), and she was a curatorial resident at Curator’s Agenda: Vienna in 2019. Anna Mikaela holds dual MA degrees, in Design History, Material Culture, and Decorative Arts from Bard Graduate Center and in Art History from Stockholm University. She also studied at London School of Economics, Sorbonne-Paris IV, and Columbia University. Photo Dom Duro.
Selena Liu
Exhibition Designer
Selena is a Taiwanese-American designer and a New York native. She received a BID in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute with a focus on exhibition design. Selena served as co-curator and showing artist at Gowanus: Open Studios 2019 and also exhibited at Frost Gallery 2019. She was a resident designer at North Lands Creative in Scotland in 2017 and also studied furniture design in Copenhagen. She has partnered with nonprofits such as Kids of Kathmandu and Artists for Asian American Federation, and is creating a collection whose proceeds permanently go to nonprofits supporting the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. In her own work, she explores childhood development through color and form.
Mary Annunziata
Curatorial Advisor
Mary Annunziata is a Brooklyn-based writer and curator whose research focuses on conceptual representations of conflict, surveillance, forced migration, and diasporic identity. She holds an MA in Critical & Curatorial Studies from Columbia University and has worked at institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Most recently, Mary worked for a grantmaking initiative called the Artist Protection Fund, a fellowship program for displaced and threatened artists from emergency zones worldwide. Mary currently serves as a Grant Writer for Access Now, an international NGO that defends and extends the digital rights of users at risk, and as a Curatorial Advisor for The Immigrant Artist Biennial, launching in New York in Spring 2020.
Alex Sullivan
Digital Production Manager
Alex Sullivan is an interdisciplinary artist, New York City native, occasional photographer, computer whisperer, and solver of small puzzles. She received an MFA in Art Practice from the School of Visual Arts, a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Women’s Studies from Penn State. She helped to run the 2018 Art in Odd Places: BODY festival, serves as the Production Manager and as a contributor for Performance is Alive, and is the Digital Production Manager for The Immigrant Artist Biennial. Her work is an exploration of the construction of identity within the world of embodied knowledge. Photo Walter Wlodarczyk.
Allison Cannella
Curatorial Advisor
Allison Cannella was born in the South, raised in the Midwest, rooted in the Southwest, and educated on the East Coast with familial ties to Florida, Allison Cannella now calls New York her home.Allison completed the Masters in Modern & Contemporary Art History: Critical and Curatorial Studies program at Columbia University in 2018 with a thesis on conceptual art, perception, and the emerging field of neuroesthetics. She got her start in the gallery world nearly three years ago at David Zwirner where she currently works as a sales assistant.
Juana Urrea
Volunteer Coordinator
Juana Urrea was born and raised in Medellín, Colombia. She immigrated to the United States in 2015 to pursue her undergraduate degree in Illustration (BFA) and Urban Studies (BA) at The New School. She has experience working in the non-profit art sector, interning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Art in Odd Places, an annual public art festival. In her work, Juana often explores the intersection of art and identity.