Melia Efstratis Chendo                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            



















Melia Chendo is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Their work with photo, video, and performance engages with the politics of (dis)identification, spectatorship, and desire. In privileging process as product and fragmentation as subject, Melia’s experiments with portraiture and the moving image re-articulate self identity as a performative practice. Melia has developed a distinct theoretical investment in performative gesture as the intentionality and orientation of subjects as creative beings. The word “embodiment” has continuously emerged in their academic and creative pursuits as they have grappled with how human beings respond to institutional structures of power and seek to articulate their experience through performative expression. Critical theories of gender, sexuality, race, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology have shaped their exploration of the body as the site of intersubjectivity — where experience is felt, created, and shared. 

Melia holds an MA in Performance Studies from NYU Tisch and a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.