Nico is a body of colliding personas. Her work explores identity as a series of densities, of collaboration, paracisticism, of mutually dependent, generative/ destructive eco-system. She is interested in what it means to approximate the unknown as an ethics for encountering difference.
Athene is currently completing her MAFA at the University of Witwatersrand, supported by an Andrew Mellon Foundation Grant, where she exploring identity beyond the tradable, and the opportunities of relationship in ‘capitalist wastelands’. Athene has been an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Centre, USA, Arteles in Finland, the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico, USA, and Any Body Dance Lab, South Africa. She is a Sasol New Signatures Merit Award Winner (2019).
n/ Nico Athene
b/ Cape Town
w/ www.callmenico.com
i/ @nicoathene
e/ nicoathene@gmail.com
Select Shows
2020 - Nonrepresented, curated by Dineo Diphofa and Lemeeze
Davids, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2020 - National Arts Festival Online, Main Programme, South Africa
2019 - Its Rude To Stare But You’re Welcome to See curated by Isabella Chydenius, Cape Town, South
Africa
2019 - Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards 2019, Ekhuruleni, South Africa
2019 - Sasol New Signatures, Pretoria Art Museum
2019 - Home Affairs exhibition, Art Week, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 - Buffer Zones, curated by Juliana Irene Smith, Vaasa, Finland
2018 - I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Your Wallet, curated by Ed Young, Kalashnikovv Gallery,
Johannesburg, South Africa
2017 - In Bed With Artists Exhibition, curated by Nico Athene and Sitaara Stodle, Cape Town, South Africa
Performances
2019 - Institute for Creative Arts Live Art Workshop, curated by Jay Pather, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 - Body Politic 2: Pathology, curated by Louise Westerhout, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 - Any Body Dance Lab, curated by Kopano Maroga, Thalia Laric and Kristina Johnston, Cape Town,
South Africa
2018 - Communities of Bacteria and Dreams, Vermont Studio Centre, Vermont, USA
2017 - In Bed With Artists Residency, curated by Nico Athene and Juliana Irene Smith, Cape Town,
Johannesburg
2015 - 2017 Bodies of Work, Mavericks Gentleman’s Club
Awards / Residencies
2019 - Sasol New Signatures Merit Award
2019 - Wits Post Graduate Research Grant 2019
2019 Arts Research Africa WSOA Mellon funded Masters Bursary
2018 - Sante Fe Art Institute, Artist in Residence, New Mexico, USA
2018 - Arts, Letters, and Numbers, Artist in Residence, New York, USA
2018 - Any Body Dance Lab, Artist in Residence, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 - Vermont Studio Centre, Artist in Residence, Vermont, USA
2017 -Arteles Creative Residency Program, Artist in Residence, Finland
2016 - Centre for the Archive, University of Cape Town, Research Resident ‘Body as Archive’
Presentations
2020 - Workshop presentation at Art Research Africa symposium at the University of Witswatersrand, Johannesburg
2019 - Paper presentation at Art, Objects and Archives symposium at the Origins Centre, Johannesburg
2018 - Wiser Symposium on Well Sexuality, Panelist, University of Witswaterstrand, Johannesburg
Education
Birth Doula Training, Mama Bamba, Johannesburg (and online)
MAFA University of Witwatersrand (in abeyance due to COVID)
Family Constellation Facilitation, African Constellations, Cape Town
Masters in Public Health, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
BA Social Anthropology and English, University of Cape Town
