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Nina Valerie Kolowratnik

Doctoral Researcher

  • Email Nina.Kolowratnik[@]UGent.be
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Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's Bio

Nina Valerie Kolowratnik is a PhD researcher within the Human Rights Centre at Ghent University. Her research focuses on Indigenous peoples’ knowledge in human rights courts and the impact of the evidentiary regime on access to justice and knowledge representation, and is part of the larger ERC-funded project “DISSECT: Evidence in International Human Rights Adjudication” under the supervision of Professor Marie-Bénédicte Dembour. From June-September 2022 and from January-October 2023 Nina is performing fieldwork in Ecuador where she is focusing on the two cases Pueblos Indígenas Tagaeri Taromenane vs Ecuador and Pueblo Indígena Kichwa de Sarayaku vs Ecuador, litigated at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Nina holds an MSc in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture from Columbia University, where she was a Fulbright fellow, and a BSc and MSc in Architecture from Graz University of Technology.

Following her postgraduate studies, she founded a research and advocacy practice that develops spatial visualization systems operating as translational tools in the context of forced migration, cultural claims to territory and Indigenous rights. Nina’s book The Language of Secret Proof: Indigenous Truth and Representation (Sternberg Press, 2019) examines evidence production and cultural secrecy within Native American land claims and presents a set of alternative evidentiary drawings–developed with members and Elders of Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico–that respect and work within a culture organized around secrecy. Recently Nina’s work has been shown at Kunsthalle Exnergasse Vienna, Rotor Center for Contemporary Art Graz, Stacion CCA Prishtina, the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Oslo Architecture Triennale. Her research has been supported by The Architectural League of New York and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts, among other. In 2016 she received the Outstanding Artist Award in Experimental Tendencies in Architecture by the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

Between 2014 and 2018 Nina was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a Lecturer and Research Associate at Vienna University of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture, where she taught graduate courses on borderlands, migration and visual counter narratives.

Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's Featured Publications

Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's Publications

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Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's Professional positions

  • Doctoral Researcher, Ghent University, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Department of European, Public and International Law (January 2021–ongoing)
  • Independent Architectural Researcher and Consultant (2013-ongoing)
  • Research Assistant, University of Technology Vienna, Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Planning, Excite Initiative (2017-2018)
  • Lecturer, University of Technology Vienna, Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Planning (2015-2017)
  • Adjunct Assistant Professor in Architecture, Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (2014-17)
  • Teaching Associate in Architecture, Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (2014)
  • Assistant Exhibition Coordinator / Assistant Curator, Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (2012-2014)

Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's Education

  • MSc in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University, New York (2013)
  • Dipl. Ing./ MSc and BSc in Architecture, Graz University of Technology, Austria (2010); graduation with highest distinction

Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's Teaching

University Lecturer, Vienna University of Technology, Department of Architecture

  • SPRING 2017: 253.791 Graduate Design Studio “Towards an Architecture of Hospitality: Autonomous Forms of Arrival” + 252.593 Research Travel
  • SPRING 2016: 253.920 Graduate Design Studio “Fluchtraum Österreich“ + 252.593 Research Travel
  • SPRING 2017: 253.791 Graduate Design Studio “Fluchtraum Österreich” + 252.593 Research Travel

Adjunct Assistant Professor in Architecture, Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP)

  • SPRING 2017: Workshop “Deserted Borderlands: Conservation, Sovereignty, and Surveillance on the Tohono O’odham Nation”, in collaboration w/ Tohono O’odham Community College, Arizona
  • FALL 2016: A6797-1 Seminar “Echoing Borders: The Production of Space within new Paradigms of Citizenship”; research travel with students to Jordan and Israel/ Palestine (Naqab/Negev, Occupied Westbank, Golan Heights)
  • FALL 2015: A6797-1 Seminar “Echoing Borders: The Production of Space within new Paradigms of Citizenship”; research travel with students to Jordan and Lesvos, Greece.
  • FALL 2014: A6797-1 Seminar “Echoing Borders: The Shelter, The Camp, The City, and The State”; research travel with students to Jordan
  • SUMMER 2014: GSAPP Summer Workshop “Echoing Borders”; 20-day workshop in Jordan and Turkey

Teaching Associate in Architecture, Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP)

  • SPRING 2014: A4006/A4106 Advanced Architectural Design Studio VI “Jerusalem and The Occupation of Memory: Lifta”; research travel with students to Jordan and Israel/Palestine

Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's Scientific honors, awards, and fellowships/grants

  • Publication Project Grant, Federal Chancellery of Austria (2020)
  • Research Grant to Individuals, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago (2018)
  • Exhibition Project Grant, Federal Chancellery of Austria (2017)
    EXCITE Award for Outstanding Projects in Teaching and Research, Vienna University of Technology (2016)
  • Outstanding Artist Award Experimental Tendencies in Architecture, Federal Chancellery of Austria (2016)
  • Deborah J. Norden Fund Grant, The Architectural League New York (2016)
  • Artist-In-Residence-Program Award West Balkan Calling, Rotor CCA, Graz (2016)
  • START Stipendium, Grant for Young Architectural Practitioners, Federal Chancellery of Austria (2013)
  • Thesis Program Award, CCCP Program, Columbia University GSAPP (2013)
  • Student Advisory Board Fellowship, Austrian Cultural Forum New York (2011-2013)
  • Fulbright Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies in the United States (2011-2013)
  • Publication Project Grant, Federal Chancellery of Austria (2010)
  • Architecture Diploma Thesis Award, Graz University of Technology, Austria (2010)
Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's work details
  • Contact Hours: On appointment
  • Visiting Address: Paddenhoek 5, 2nd Floor, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
  • Postal Address: Ghent University, Campus Aula, Human Rights Centre, Universiteitstraat 4, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
  • Working Days: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
  • Working Hours: 09:00 h. - 17:00 h.
Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's expertise
  • Evidence and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge
  • Spatial Notational Systems
  • Architecture and Human Rights
  • Visual Evidence
  • Human Rights and Culture

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