Statement

Maya Ciarrocchi is an interdisciplinary artist working across media in drawing, printmaking, video, and performance. Her projects center on vanished histories through the lens of Queerness and her Ashkenazi ancestry. She investigates how displacement writes itself into generational consciousness by layering maps and architectural renderings of disappeared and mythological places. The resulting compositions construct new, fantastical spaces that offer possibilities for healing and remembrance.

Ciarrocchi's previous career as a dancer/choreographer and theatrical designer allowed her to work in various formats across scale, technique, and palette ranging from performance in site-specific locations to large-scale projections in traditional and experimental theatrical venues. These past experiences inform her current multi-disciplinary studio practice, which includes monochromatic prints and drawings, video, participatory movement-based performances, and vibrantly painted color abstractions. These projects vary from works on paper to large-scale public artworks and site-specific installations.

Recent work includes Site: Yizkor, a performance commemorating disappeared places through video, music, and personal narrative, and Rivers, Dreams, Invisible Cities, an installation of suspended cyanotype prints on silk that illustrate historical maps and drawings of fantastical architectural structures. This work considers the impact of urbanization on New York City water systems and their shorelines now inaccessible to city residents.