Alumna Niku Koochak is a recent winner of a Galleries Ontario curatorial award. (DAVE GAUTHIER/University of Windsor).
By Kate Hargreaves
Collaboration is at the heart of University of Windsor Master of Fine Arts (MFA) alumna Niku Koochak’s curatorial process.
Koochak (MFA ’24) recently received the Galleries Ontario / Galeries (GOG) Award for First Exhibition in a Public Art Gallery for curatorial work at Art Windsor-Essex (AWE) as part of its Below the 6 series, which highlights Southwestern Ontario artists.
As the 2024–25 TD Curatorial Fellow at AWE, Koochak curated an exhibition of multidisciplinary Iranian artist Behnaz Fatemi’s Rhythm of Remembering, with the GOG jury noting that “the curatorial vision delivered to the visitor an intense memory frozen in time.”
“I wanted to shape the exhibition in a way that allowed the viewer to pause inside the exact moment of displacement, that suspended, painful moment that the work is rooted in,” Koochak says.
“Because I deeply understand that feeling, I leaned into it while shaping the exhibition and tried to translate it spatially for the audience so they could step into the emotional space inside Behnaz’s work.”
Koochak describes the joint work as being shaped by listening, dialogue and understanding via shared experiences.
“It was the first exhibition that I was curating all by myself,” Koochak explains.
Koochak had learned of Fatemi’s work through Fatemi’s MFA thesis and visited the artist’s studio to discuss directions for an exhibition at AWE.
“My curatorial approach begins with deep listening. I want the artist to speak from their lived experience first and about their thesis,” Koochak says of her process.
“Then I respond conceptually and spatially, asking how we can show the work in a way that expands its meaning for the viewer.”
The resulting exhibition, Rhythm of Remembering, involved performance, sculpture, drawing and installation to explore grief, cultural displacement, loss and memory.
“The project shape, it was based on our discussion,” says Koochak, giving the example of the choice to display sculpture on a long red shelf.
“Part of her work is figurative sculpture that before she showed in a pile,” Koochak explains.
“But I suggested a red shelf in a hallway to represent blood based on the reason she made those beautiful sculptures.”
This choice was amongst those highlighted by the GOG jury as a standout aspect of the exhibition.
“The collaboration of artist and curator crystallize for the viewer a terrible moment of desperate choices,” the jury wrote.
“The beautiful and appointed installation — that red shelf! — supported and enacted the artist’s vision.”
Working with Fatemi came easily for Koochak, in part due to a shared understanding of migration and displacement, themes that run through both artists’ work.
“It felt that we were understanding each other. We know what we’re talking about,” says Koochak.
“I wanted to represent her work better in a way, knowing what that feeling is about, so I went to that feeling.”
Koochak’s own artistic practice investigates how identities are formed, adapted, and put into conflict as we navigate social environments. Her work is interdisciplinary, moving fluidly between painting, drawing, installation, and performance, often using custom-built tools and site-responsive methods.
Her MFA thesis, supervised by Drs. Lee Rodney and Karen Engle in the School of Creative Arts, involved drawing performance and installation work, garnering media attention locally.
This encouraged Koochak to apply for, and ultimately receive, the TD Curatorial Fellowship for 2024-25, focused on curating work from regional artists who are socially and politically engaged, a natural fit with the sociopolitical orientation of her own work.
During the fellowship, Koochak was mentored by Emily McKibbon, Head of Collections and Exhibitions at Art Windsor-Essex, whose guidance played a key role in her development as an emerging curator.
With a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Tehran’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Koochak also brings this lens and set of skills to her artistic and curatorial work.
“I can bring different way of showing the artwork that still keeps the concept but just in a different form, like a structure to improve what it wants to say,” she says.
Drawing on her training in architecture, Koochak frequently designs custom structures and 3D exhibition models, using spatial thinking as an extension of the artwork’s conceptual core.
Recalling the support of MakeLab technician Lucy Howe when working in the wood shop to create her MFA installation, Koochak cites the SoCA’s faculty, staff and facilities as instrumental to that work.
“I was grateful we had great supervisors and use of all the equipment at school, studios and everything. That was a big help," she says.
Having wrapped up the TD Curatorial Fellowship, this year awarded to fellow MFA alumna Talysha Bujold-Abu, the GOG award is a fitting finale to that chapter in Koochak's practice.
“I loved that project, I put in a lot of effort, and the artist’s work was so beautiful,” she says.
“The award completed that, even though I didn’t expect it. It made me so happy and proud of everything we did.”
Going forward, Koochak is working on balancing her artistic practice with curatorial work.
“I’m focused on my own art practice, selling artwork, making art, but also considering curatorial—a project that aligns with my own practice, she says.
"My goal is to balance both of those at the same time and also survive financially.”
To keep up with Niku Koochak’s work, visit her website.