About BICA

About BICA

The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art was founded in 2018 by curator Emily Ebba Reynolds and artist and Buffalo native Nando Alvarez-Perez. Our mission is to sustain communities through focused, practical engagements with contemporary art. 

Since 2018 BICA has grown from a project space in a two-car mechanic’s garage to being an integral institution in the fabric of Buffalo’s cultural scene. We serve an audience that has been generationally overlooked in our city: artists and creative professionals, younger artists, artists and creatives of color, and LGBTQAI+ artists.

We are situated on Buffalo’s West Side in the historic Essex Street Arts Center, long a home to Buffalo’s most radical artist-led initiatives like Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center and CEPA Gallery.

There are several core programmatic components to BICA’s mission:

We produce innovative exhibitions featuring locally and internationally recognized artists whose projects enter into critical dialogue with the city of Buffalo

We publish Cornelia magazine, bringing visibility to the work of artists, curators, and writers in Buffalo and the Southern Ontario region

We’re home to BICA School, a free contemporary art school for artists, curators, researchers, and organizers who wish to learn together and grow their practice through weekly critiques, reading groups, and collaborative projects 

We support artists in the production of new work, the creation of new platforms through quarterly microgrants, and administering the Generator Fund – awarding more than $60,000 to artists annually

All of these programs are free to access by the public and have been built from the ground up through conversations with our audiences and wider community. Together they aim at making Buffalo a better city for its residents, one where art and artists are at the center of reimagining civic and institutional possibility.

We Are

We Are

  • Co-Founder & President

    Nando Alvarez-Perez is an artist, photographer, and educator. He is the co-founder and director of the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art. His work has been exhibited throughout Europe and North America. He holds a masters in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute, and a bachelors in Film Studies from Hunter College. Nando has worked as a Creative Lead at Airbnb, and taught classes at the California College of the Arts, Alfred University, and the University of Rochester, and currently works as a freelance photographer.

  • Gallery Assistant & Generator Grant Coordinator

    Wavy started working with BICA as a fill-in gallery sitter, then as an intern, and now has joined the team as a part-time gallery assistant and grants coordinator. Outside BICA, Wavy makes music under the name Way2WavyBaby and C4W2.

  • Co-Founder and Executive Director

    Emily Ebba Reynolds is the co-founder and director of the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA). Emily works at the crossroads of museums and cultural institutions, community organizing, and marketing. Beyond BICA, Emily works at the University at Buffalo Art Galleries as the Marketing and Communications Manager and has previously had positions at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She is a founding partner of Bass & Reiner Gallery, an experimental gallery in San Francisco, where she curated from 2014-2017. She holds a master’s degree in Exhibition and Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Bachelors in Art History from the University of Colorado Boulder.

  • Gallery Dog

    Twinka isn’t much help around the gallery, but she is around a lot and is an enthusiastic greeter.

Board

Board

Rachel Adams, Chief Curator and Director of Programs, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts

Andrea Alvarez, Associate Curator, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Patrick Finan, Co-founder & Partner, Block Club

Kyla Kegler, Artist & Teacher

Olivia McManus, Director, Rivalry Projects

Chris Ryan, In-House Counsel, US Bank