EFA OPEN STUDIOS 2026

Schedule

Friday, October 9
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Professional Preview (by RSVP)
6:00 pm – 9:00 pm Opening Night Registration encouraged

Saturday, October 10
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Panel Discussion: Art & History - History & Art
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm Open Studios
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Walkthrough of Asilah Oui: Robert Blackburn in
Morocco with Curator Imani Congdon

Location

EFA Center
323 West 39th Street
New York, NY 10018

Free and open to the public.

EFA OPEN STUDIOS
We welcome the public to explore 80 artist studios, along with a host of arts programming and exhibitions, all located in the EFA building in Midtown Manhattan. This event offers a rare opportunity to witness the creative process up close and engage with a vibrant community of professional artists. Our internationally recognized members, each with established studio practices and career honors, will open their doors to showcase their most recent works. Additionally, the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop will be open for special events and tours, providing firsthand experiences of the transformative power of art.

Image: Wafaa Bilal, Domestic Tension, 2007

Studios Exhibition Pathways Programming

Programming

Saturday, October 10, 12–1 PM

Panel Discussion: Art & History - History & Art

EFA Gallery | 3rd Floor

Join us for an engaging panel discussion featuring Dr. Gervais Marsh, Nat Trotman, and Ruba Katrib, three distinguished curators whose work explores the intersections of history, memory, and contemporary art through exhibitions, research, and public programming.

Together, they will discuss how historical narratives shape contemporary artistic practice, how exhibitions can illuminate overlooked histories or challenge dominant ones, and how curators navigate the complexities of interpreting the past for today's audiences. Drawing on their recent curatorial projects and institutional experience, the panelists will reflect on the evolving role of museums, archives, and exhibitions in connecting history to the present.

Additional speakers to be announced.

RSVP

Saturday, October 18, 2–3 PM

**Curator Walkthrough: Asilah Oui: Robert Blackburn in Morocco with Imani Congdon**

EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop | 2nd Floor

Join curator Imani Congdon for a guided walkthrough of Asilah Oui: Robert Blackburn in Morocco, an exhibition exploring the artistic exchange between Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop and the Asilah Cultural Moussem in Morocco.

Through a selection of prints, photographs, and archival materials, Congdon will discuss the exhibition's research, the featured artists, and the lasting impact of Robert Blackburn's vision of collaboration, cultural exchange, and international printmaking. Following the walkthrough, attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and engage in conversation about the exhibition and its themes.

Imani Congdon is a researcher and archivist whose work focuses on the communal, political, and organizational functions of the print shop as a site of artistic innovation and cultural exchange. She is the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Print Collection Archivist and curator of Asilah Oui: Robert Blackburn in Morocco, supported by the Teiger Foundation.

RSVP

Pathways

Project Pathways is a curatorial initiative within the Elisabeth Foundation for the Arts Open Studios program that highlights the creative processes behind contemporary artistic practice. Focusing on works in development as well as completed projects, it offers visitors insight into the research, experimentation, and critical thinking that shape each artist’s journey.

By foregrounding process and dialogue, the initiative transforms the studio visit into an opportunity for deeper understanding and exchange, revealing the many pathways through which contemporary art is imagined, developed, and shared.

Technologies of Resistance

Curated by Cassie Packard

In their socially minded practices, the artists gathered here don’t only expose such structural violences as extractivism, colonialism, imperialism, racism, and ableism. They intervene in the very systems – legal, pedagogical, economic, archival – routinely put in service of these violences and their necropolitical logics, identifying critical openings for resistance and repair.

This pathway futures: Wafaa Bilal, Laura Anderson Barbata, Finnegan Shannon, Pablo Helguera, Bundith Phunsombatlert, Jan Mun, Jason File.

Learn more