Julia Csekö, "A Coney Island of the Mind-Marshal McLuhan," 2006, acrylic on canvas, 130.0 x 130.0 cm. Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia. Photo: Howard Ursuliak
Julia Csekö is an Artist, Educator and Independent Curator having worked at multiple learning, non-profits, and cultural organizations, including Montserrat College of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Csekö cites Educator and thinker Paulo Freire, and his critical Pedagogy and dialectical approach to education as a reference for her art practice, and the concept of the Greekagora as inspiration for her time-based work. She seeks to create experiences where "performer and viewer, creation and consumption occupy the same space."[3][4]
Most recently Csekö is a Boston Center for the Arts AiR, a Collective Futures Tufts Art Galleries Warhol Foundation Grantee, JArts Be The Change Awardee, Randolph, and Newton LCC Grantee, and a Somerville LCC Ambassador. In 22’ Cseko was a Somerville LCC grantee, a CTV MassCreative Fellow, and a Somerville Museum Community Curator, at the Somerville Museum 2021, an Artcubator Artist Residency at the Umbrella Center for the Arts 2020–21. In the summer of 2020, she was invited as a Visiting Artist by Emerson College to create a site-specific mural for the Piano Row Campus, featuring the words of late Congressman John Lewis. In addition, she has a public mural on view at Winter Place, downtown Boston, commissioned by the Boston Downtown BID, and created in partnership with the Boston Literary District.[1] In 2018 Csekö was invited to the Assets for Artists MassMoCA residency program where she further investigated her multi-disciplinary practice as a sculptor, painter, and performer.
Awards
Boston Center for the Arts AiR 2023
Collective Futures Tufts Art Galleries Warhol Foundation Grant 2022-23
Be The Change JArts Awardee 2023
Somerville LCC Cultural Ambassador 2023
Newton and Randolph LCC Grantee 2023
MassCreative CTV Fellow 2022
Somerville Museum Community Curator Grantee 2022
Sculpture Space Air 2022
Somerville Arts Council Fellowship 2021
Community Curator award at the Somerville Museum 2021Somerville Arts Council Fellowship 2021
Community Curator award at the Somerville Museum 2021
Walter Feldman Fellowship for Emerging Artists, 2015–2016.[9][10] The fellowship culminated in her first American, solo exhibition Straight from the Heart—The Rant Series.[11]
Julia Csekö, "A Coney Island of the Mind series - text of Henri Lefbvre," 2012, acrylic on wall, 12x20". Site specific mural for a solo show at Oscar Cruz Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil. Photo: Joana Traub Csekö