Esther M. Choi is an artist and writer whose work merges photography, sculpture, and historical analysis to explore how visual and spatial frameworks shape our understanding of the (post)natural world. Drawing on her background in photography and architectural history/ theory, as well as decolonial and postcolonial theory, critical environmental studies, new historicism, and feminist science and technology studies, Choi’s current work examines how oil-based and energy-intensive systems impact both image production and the environment.

Her 2019 artist’s book Le Corbuffet (Prestel), a reimagined cookbook, was a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Photography Award, critiquing the image economy and cultural consumption. In 2020, she founded Office Hours, a socially-engaged project for BIPOC cultural workers that evolved into Public Service, a four-part video series on social change in the cultural industries, supported by the Ford Foundation.

Choi’s work has been exhibited at venues including The Camera Club of New York, Radiator Gallery (New York), Texas State Galleries (Texas), Gallery 103 at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Banvard Gallery at Ohio State University, and Angell Gallery (Toronto), among others. Her research has been featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Lisbon Triennial, and Warsaw Under Construction Festival. Her photographs for T: The New York Times Style Magazine earned a 2024 ASME National Magazine Award nomination.

Choi co-edited Architecture at the Edge of Everything Else (MIT Press, 2010) and Architecture Is All Over (Columbia Books, 2017) and has contributed to publications such as E-flux, Artforum, Art Papers, Perspecta, Architectural Record, The Journal of Architectural Education, and Harvard Design Magazine. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, Richard Rogers Fellowship (Harvard University), Getty Foundation/ American Council of Learned Societies, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Society for Architectural Historians, Canadian Center for Architecture, Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of Canada, and others.

A 2022 Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow, Choi has taught at OCAD University, The Cooper Union and other institutions. She holds a joint PhD in Architectural History/ Theory and Interdisciplinary Humanities from Princeton University, along with degrees in photography and architectural history/ theory from Harvard, Concordia, and Toronto Metropolitan Universities. Choi currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Email: studio@estherchoi.net

Commercial and editorial commissions: Visual Studies