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Nico is a body of colliding personas. Her work explores identity as a series of densities, and the kitsch-horror potentialities of maternal collaboration, paracisticism, and mutually-dependent, generative/ destructive eco-system. She is interested in approximating unknowns as an ethics for encountering difference.  ​

 

Athene is currently completing her MAFA at the University of Witwatersrand, with the support of an Andrew Mellon Foundation Grant. For her MFA she's exploring landscapes as methodology, and the opportunities for relationship and life 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).

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n/ Nico Athene
b/ Cape Town
w/ www.callmenico.com
i/ @nicoathene
e/ nicoathene@gmail.com


Select Shows
2020 - Nonrepresented, Stevenson Gallery Online, 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, 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 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

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