Contact

esther [at] estherchoi [dot] net

Biography

As an artist and scholar working across the fields of art and architecture, Esther Choi's artistic practice and research explore how concepts of identity and nature—and, by extension, beliefs about what is normative, natural and inevitable— have shaped and been shaped by modern worldmaking practices. Her historical scholarship informs many of her artistic projects, which focus on projective, speculative approaches to understanding the synthetic or "second" natures of contemporary life. A persistent theme in her work explores how the genre of landscape can act as a proxy for the unequal social terrain of our world.

As an extension of her interests, in 2020, she founded Office Hours, an artist-run initiative that cultivates the sharing of liberatory worldmaking knowledge amongst BIPOC artists, architects and designers. Since 2020, over 2000 people of the global majority have attended OH events from 20 countries. In 2022, OH will launch Breaking Waves, a web series that explores strategies to catalyze radical social change and decolonial structures in the culture industries and beyond.

Choi's critical essays have appeared in Artforum, Art Papers, E-Flux Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education, Architectural Review, and SSENSE, and books such as Hippie Modernism (2015), Reaper (2015) and Radical Pedagogies (2022). Choi is the creator of the artist's book Le Corbuffet (Prestel, 2019). She is the coeditor of Architecture At the Edge of Everything Else (MIT Press, 2010) and Architecture Is All Over (Columbia U, 2017).

From 2022-2023, she will be a Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow. Choi teaches at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

Choi earned a BFA from Toronto Metropolitan University, her MFA from Concordia University, her MDeS from Harvard, and her Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture from Princeton University. She has received grants and fellowships for her work from the Graham Foundation, Getty Foundation, ACLS, Richard Rogers Fellowship, Canada Council for the Arts and The Ford Foundation, among others.