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# Katya Grokhovsky and Anna Mikaela Ekstrand lead the way with The Immigrant Artist Biennial
- URL: https://www.kinoki.co/katya-grokhovsky-anna-mikaela-ekstrand-lead-the-way-immigrant-artist-biennial/
- Published: 2026-10-26T22:08:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-26T22:07:59.000Z
- Description: Grokhovsky and Ekstrand speak about the current edition of The Immigrant Artist Biennial and its focus on time-based art.
- Author: Team Kinoki
- Tags: Interviews

The third edition of The Immigrant Artist Biennial, with the title[Identity Card](https://www.theimmigrantartistbiennial.com/about-2026?ref=kinoki.co), takes the form of a programmatic framework across New York City. The four curators of the Biennial – Sanna Almajedi, Sofia Thiệu D’Amico, Eva Mayhabal Davis and Anna Khimasia – were selected by Katya Grokhovsky, Founding Artistic Director, and Anna Mikaela Ekstrand, Director, in recognition of their scholarly and professional expertise in curating performance, sound, and video art, as well as their demonstrated leadership within artistic communities and sustained commitment to immigrant artists. 

We spoke with Grokhovsky and Ekstrand about the current form of The Immigrant Artist Biennial, working with time-based art, and the future of this young institution. The Immigrant Artist Biennial opened on October 8, 2026 and runs through November 11, 2026 at the following institutions: Brooklyn Art Haus, Nguyen Wahed, Essex Kitchen co-presented by Artists Alliance Inc, Residency Unlimited, BRIC and [Shiva Gallery at John Jay College](https://www.kinoki.co/macushla-robinson-exhibiting-the-immigrant-experience/).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/98/98986ef2-474e-4f7c-82a5-62d592178e78/content/images/2026/10/IC_Banner_640x480-3.jpg) 

#### 

****In partnership with** [****The Immigrant Artist Biennial**](https://www.theimmigrantartistbiennial.com/?ref=kinoki.co)

**The Immigrant Artist Biennial is headed into its third edition in 2026\. Tell us about some of the challenges you faced in founding it and how is it positioned now?** 

**Katya Grokhovsky:** I founded the biennial in 2019, so our first challenge was COVID. We opened with performances at Brooklyn Museum, shoulder to shoulder, hearing whispers about closures, before the city shut down. A few months later, when the central group exhibition opened at EFA Project Space we hosted an opening on Zoom as gathering was forbidden. I think of Maya Angelou, "we may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated," which also reflects the immigrant experience. Always moving forward, into the unknown, and in spite of unexpected turns. So, our first exhibition-based biennial, *Here, Together!*, that I curated, largely shifted online. Yet, through online studio visits and virtual events, artists and participants forged deep connections, and we managed to create something that lay the foundation for a very strong community. Back then, the back-end of The Immigrant Artist Biennial was perceived as larger than we actually were – we received emails addressed to various departments. When in actuality, I was running the whole show, with no operational budget, supported by a handful of female volunteers meeting in homes, gardens and virtually to plan and execute. Our focus, immigrant artists, deserve big thinking and amplifying to the best of our ability. I am an artist first, I maintain my own rigorous artistic practice, and it is important for me that the biennial, which uplifts immigrant artists, honors the hard work that artists do to build their careers and that it is well-executed.

**Anna Mikaela Ekstrand:** After more than six years, I am proud that our biennial continues to present big. But, also that we are building more sustainable frameworks for our organization, to sustain the womanpower we put into it: a 501(c)3 to be able to apply for larger grants, a financial plan to receive artwork donations and sales managed by Zeit Contemporary Art, and a partnership with UBS Wealth Managers to manage our funds. These steps help legitimize our organization institutionally and give us access to higher levels of support. So that we, echoing Katya, can present and advocate for immigrant artists in the best way possible. 

**The four curators you selected for this edition are recognized for their expertise in curating performance, sound and video art. Can you speak about your intentions in focusing on time-based media for this edition?** 

**Anna Mikaela Ekstrand:** As immigrants in the United States face uncertainty, violence, and attempts of silencing through DEI rollbacks, increases in pricing and regulations around visas, a changing legal landscape, travel restrictions and bans, and increased ICE presence, and globally, as wars and climate disasters continue to force migration, and, importantly, that desire, continues to propel people to migrate, we found it important to stage another impactful biennial. Focusing on time-based work – video, film, slide, audio – as well as performance and panels, is a way to present work without cutting corners as New York’s cultural landscape faces defunding. We are offering a sequential viewing experience and centering the immigrant body, technology, and experience in a way that nods to the temporary, or in the words of our curators, fugitive, experience of migration itself. We hope that the gatherings at the biennial become containers for thought, community building, and celebration where audiences can engage and learn about questions surrounding migration while also finding joy in community. 

In a tense time, both financially and politically, we wanted to knock on doors, seeing who might open, rather than kicking them in. When our second edition closed, we mapped out a year of meetings to shore up interest for the third biennial, mostly with museums and institutions as potential hosts. None offered us exhibition space with funding, however there was enthusiasm to host parts of the biennial temporarily in theater, gallery, and transitional spaces. Shaping a biennial around durational work presented at events allowed us to work with funding from public program budget lines above curatorial, which have shorter lead times – and importantly, bringing people together to gather, to see each other, and to exchange ideas on paths of care to take. Asking to be hosted for an evening, rather than a month, allowed us to turn interest into support in a generative way rather than draining, while contributing something innovative to our hosts’ programming. 

**Katya Grokhovsky:** At that same dinner, one year after the second edition, where we decided to focus on events, we also chose our curators. We wanted them to come from different backgrounds and be at different levels in their careers, to provide diverse perspectives, but also to engage curators who have worked with past editions – reflecting our ethos of inclusivity. TIAB is a springboard for curators and artists, but also a space for friendships and returning. New to the biennial are Sanna Almajedi, the Iana Safina Co-Curator, who had just curated the Seoul Mediacity Biennial; Sofia Thiệu D’Amico, the Lesley Bodzy Co-Curator, who recently graduated from CCS Bard and was doing interesting work in performance; returning were Eva Mayhabal Davis, the Bailey Coleman Co-Curator, who we invited to speak at a panel during our first edition; and Anna Khimasia, who was a partner on our second biennial through her podcast International Arrivals. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/98/98986ef2-474e-4f7c-82a5-62d592178e78/content/images/2026/10/4-Katya-Grokhovsky-and-Anna-Mikaela-Ekstrand.-Photographed-by-Shuran-He.jpg)

Katya Grokhovsky and Anna Mikaela Ekstrand. Photographed by Shuran He.

**The Biennial is partnering with Shiva Gallery at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (City University of New York). What unique opportunities will this collaboration bring?**

**Katya Grokhovsky:** In the video screening series and talk *What We Carry*, hosted by Shiva Gallery, curators D’Amico and Khimasia have framed inheritance as the processes through which culture, memory, trauma, and identity are transmitted across bodies, generations, and geographies. Fittingly, Macushla Robinson, the director at Shiva Gallery, is finalizing a book on inheritance, so we expect the panel discussion to tackle the concept from different directions. In the program three artists delve into questions of inheritance while pushing the boundaries of storytelling and their mediums. Stephanie Comilang’s documentary *Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso* (Come to Me Paradise, 2016) centers the life of a Filipina guest worker; Pearlyn Lii’s *Infinite Mother* (2024) reimagines motherhood as a shifting field of care, chaos, and ambivalence, in a video game format; and mandla shares a journey from Zimbabwe to Britain, influenced by religious upbringing, in *as british as a watermelon* (2023). Khimasia first saw mandla’s piece at the 2023 Sharjah Biennial. Although it was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, we will be the first to screen it in New York.

**Anna Mikaela Ekstrand:** Working with John Jay College, a part of the CUNY system, marks our first collaboration with an educational institution. Working with Robinson on the inside has already led us to develop in new unexpected directions, something I hope will continue. Robinson has worked hard to create bridges for the student body at John Jay College to engage more deeply with the gallery program. So, with her guidance we will create an educational kit and outreach to professors surrounding our program. We have made it a point to engage with scholarship, especially through our catalogs. Among our contributors this year are gender studies scholar Judith Butler; the Pulitzer-prize winning poet Natalie Diaz, who teaches at Arizona State University; Rebecca Ruth Gould, a scholar of comparative poetics and global politics who teaches at SOAS University of London; Sarah Rifky, an independent curator; and Mary Louise Pratt, who coined the term ‘contact zone,’ contributed an essay. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/98/98986ef2-474e-4f7c-82a5-62d592178e78/content/images/2026/10/TIAB-Flag-on-Brooklyn-Bridge.-Photo_-Ariel-Diaz.jpg)

The Immigrant Artist Biennial Flag on the Brooklyn Bridge. Photo: Ariel Diaz.

**The calendar is crowded with biennials in North America, not to mention the rest of the world. How does The Immigrant Artist Biennial fit into this landscape, and what are your objectives for the Biennial in the editions to come?** 

**Anna Mikaela Ekstrand:** Rather than fitting in, we want to lead the way. The masks, dresses, and other props for our photoshoot are from Katya’s *Bad Woman* universe – *Bad Woma*n is not here to please, she is a rebel, she is strong, and she is unstoppable. That is us and The Immigrant Artist Biennial. 

**Katya Grokhovsky:** Absolutely \[chuckles\]. We are technically not a biennial (currently occurring triannually), and the format for our biennial changes every edition. I called the project a biennial because the term is powerful; it is political – biennials not only legitimize participating artists and draw larger publics, they extend beyond the arts to serve tourism, act as soft power in geopolitics, and can be used to further political aims. When I founded TIAB I did not only want to exhibit, I wanted my biennial to shed light on the realities that immigrant artists face in the United States and act as an advocate for them as they interface with the art world and immigration systems as well as celebrating their artistic work.

**Anna Mikaela Ekstrand:** Some twenty years ago, Daniel Birnbaum wrote in *Domus*: “The Biennial is dead. Its formula as a container of artistic expression is worn out.” Yet, the number of biennials have continued to grow in size and number, meaning that more artists and arts professionals are featured in them and more audiences see them. TIAB is part of this widening that has made the sphere of biennials more inclusive, and we continue to instrumentalize the term to promote the incredible work of our immigrant artists and curators. 

**Katya Grokhovsky:** For the next edition, our objective is to bring everyone together under one roof by staging one large scale exhibition at one major venue. Creating a shared space for gathering, dialogue, and meaningful connection that continues to expand our collective sense of belonging.