Maria Papanikolaou studied law at the Law School of Athens University and sculpture at Royal Academy of Art in the Netherlands. She holds a Master’s Degree (2009-2011) and a PhD (2022) from the Athens School of Fine Arts in Greece. In 2015 she was awarded the Open Call Prize at the Biennial of Moving Image (Frankfurt, Germany), and the next year she received the Fulbright Scholarship (New York, 2016-2017). In 2018 she was part of the first SNF Artworks Program in Greece. She has had one person shows at annexM (Athens Concert Hall, Greece, 2023), Expodium, (Utrecht, 2007) and Filmhuis Den Haag, (The Hague, 2008), and she has participated in several group exhibitions, including: Still Here Tomorrow (Stavros Niarchos Foundation, 2019), Athens Adhocracy (Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, 2015), Expanded Senses (Museum of Applied Arts, Frankfurt, 2015), Afresh: A new generation of Greek artists, (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2013).