Stefanie Hessler


Stefanie Hessler is an international contemporary art curator, writer and the current director of Kunsthall Trondheim in Trondheim, Norway.

Biography

Hessler studied art theory in Germany and at Stockholm University where she received her MA in art curation in 2011.
Hessler is a curator for the TBA21–Academy in London and has been the director of Kunsthall Trondheim since 2019. She is the co-founder of the experimental performance space "Andquestionmark" along with artist Carsten Höller. She has worked with artists such as Christine Sun Kim and Florian Hecker.

Exhibitions

Hessler has curated art exhibitions with a focus on interdisciplinary research and sensory experience, among others on the topic of ocean ecology. In 2015 she curated the 8th Momentum Biennial of Contemporary Art in Moss, Norway. In 2017 she curated the exhibition "Sugar and Speed" at the Museum of Modern Art in Recife, Brazil and the project "Fishing for Islands" with Chus Martínez at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. In 2018 she curated the symposium "Practices of Attention" for the São Paulo Biennale on the politics of attention. In 2019 she curated the exhibition "More-than-humans" by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Tomás Saraceno at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
She has worked with the artist Joan Jonas, curating her 2018 performance at the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall entitled "Moving Off The Land" and her 2019 exhibition and performance "Moving Off The Land II" at Ocean Space, Venice, Italy. In 2018 Hessler was one of three curators for the 6th edition of the Athens Biennale as well as the exhibition "Prospecting Ocean" with artist Armin Linke at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Venice, Italy, commissioned by TBA21–Academy and in partnership with Istituto di Scienze Marine.

Teaching

Hessler is a guest professor in art theory at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. She curated an exhibition on the artist Juan Downey at the Institute.

Writing

Hessler is the author of Prospecting Ocean published by MIT Press that explores ocean extraction through artistic research. Bruno Latour wrote a foreword to the book. Hessler is also the editor of the book Tidalectics: Imagining An Oceanic Worldview through Art and Science, also published by MIT Press, which is a collection of essays, research, and art projects.
Hessler is a writer of arts criticism and contributes to publications such as Art Review Art Agenda and Mousse Magazine.