Research assistant at the Documenta Institute (Kassel)
Post-graduate student at the University of Kassel/Germany (Faculty of Sociology)
geografsmirnoff@gmail.com
Nikolay Smirnov (*1982) is a geographer, artist, curator, and researcher, working with geographical imaginations and geo-capital in art. His practice is formed around the analysis and implementation of complex narratives in the form of text, exhibitions, and film.
Co-curator of the projects Metageography (2014–2018) and Permafrost (Arctic Biennale, Yakutsk, 2016), Nikolay Smirnov participated in the main projects of the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial (2019, curator Xiaoyu Weng) and the 2nd Riga Biennial (2020, curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel). His research texts are published i.e. in: e-flux journal, Khudozhestvennyi Zhurnal (Art Magazine, Moscow), Colta.ru, CEM (Center of Experimental Museology, V.A.C. Foundation), and on the platforms Syg.ma and posle.media.
Nikolay’s recent publications include: Elements ofImmanentism in Russia: Double Belief, Cosmism, and Marx (2021); Religious Libertarians’s Foundation (essay-exhibition) (2020); Shaman, Schismatic, Necromancer: Religious Libertarians in Russia (2020); Death, Immortality, and the Powers of the Khtonic World (essay-exhibition) and Left-Wing Eurasianism and Postcolonial Theory (2019).
