Inaugural Visual Studies Researcher-in-Residence

We are pleased to announce the Researcher-in-Residency program for the Visual Studies program in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.  Each year an international guest will be in residency in the program as a visiting professor conducting their own research and engaging the students through teaching and graduate student mentorship.  For the inaugural session, philosopher of science Dehlia Hannah and curator Nadim Samman are hailing from Copenhagen and Berlin respectively.  They will be teaching courses on curating in the context of a “Blackout" and a graduate seminar on “The State of Nature (and its discontents).”  While in the city during the Winter term, they will be conducting studio visits with local artists and researching for a future exhibition. Together they will be writing the catalogue essays for the MVS Studio Thesis exhibition opening at the Art Museum April 17^th.

Dehlia Hannah, PhD, is a philosopher and curator, and Mads Øvlisen Fellow in Art and Natural Sciences at the Department of Chemistry and Biosciences at Aalborg University-Copenhagen. Her current research project, An Imaginary Museum of Philosophical Monsters, examines the role of fictional places, beings, and technologies in the history of philosophy. She holds a Doctorate in Philosophy and a Certificate in Feminist Inquiry from Columbia University, with specializations in philosophy of science and aesthetics. Her recent book, A Year Without a Winter (Columbia University Press, 2018), reframes contemporary imaginaries of climate crisis by revisiting the literary and environmental aftermaths of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora. Her forthcoming monograph, Performative Experiments, examines contemporary artworks that take the form of scientific experiments. Her writing, teaching and curatorial practice broadly explore emerging environmental imaginaries and philosophies of nature. 

Nadim Samman is a curator and art historian based in Berlin. He read Philosophy at University College London before receiving his PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. He co-founded and curated the 1st Antarctic Biennale (Antarctica, 2017) and the Antarctic Pavilion (Venice Biennale of Art, 2015-). In 2016 he curated the 5th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, and in 2012 the 4th Marrakech Biennale (with Carson Chan). Other major projects include "Treasure of Lima: A Buried Exhibition" (a unique site-specific exhibition on the remote Pacific island of Isla del Coco) and Rare Earth (at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna). Between 2012 and 2019 he co-directed the non-profit art space Import Projects, Berlin. In 2014 he was named among "100 Leading Global Thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine, and in 2016 among the "20 Most Influential Young Curators in Europe" by Art.sy.

The residency is made possible by generous support of the Dean’s Office.