Email:
iman(@)datoos.com
iman(@)datoos.com
Iman Datoo (b.1995) is an artist living and working in London. Her practice brings together botany and cartography within the spatial environments of stories to consider forces of agency, liveness and animacy between plants, soils and people.
Language, whether visual, spoken or intuited, serves as Iman’s primary tool to disturb and open pathways towards more-than-human worlds. She is interested in what it means to reorient ourselves around invisibilised bodies, inhabit them and readjust to their methods of rooting and re-routing. Iman’s work encourages conversations with scientists and academics about hierarchical relationships in natural history and plant science, considering intimacy and embodiment as not only affects, but also as means for inquiry.
Iman’s recent work includes a 3-year investigation into the epistemologies and migratory patterns of the potato. As part of this project, she created a film, installation and audio piece, which were exhibited at the Eden Project, Cornwall (2022/3), The Plumb, Toronto (2023) and Drugo More Gallery, Rijeka (2021).
She is currently artist-in-residence with the Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter and the Eden Project, working on a research project exploring the movements and behaviours of soils.
CV
EXHIBTIONS
Against Apartheid, KARST Contemporary Arts, 2023 (forthcoming)
Super Natural, The Eden Project, Cornwall, UK, 2022-23
On a Table, Over Time, The Plumb, Toronto, Canada, 2023
Mapping the Cartographic, Drugo More Gallery, Rijeka, 2022
Multimedia Encounters in the Anthropocene, UCL, London, UK, 2021-22
AA Live Around the World, 2020
Material Worlds, Architectural Association, 2019
Amphibious Habitats, La Terrica Gallery, Malaga, Spain, 2017
Biryani!, Southbank Centre, Alchemy Film Festival, 2017
Bartlett School of Architecture End of Year Shows, 2016, 2015, 2014
Secret 7” x Ideas Generation Gallery, Shoreditch, 2012
RESIDENCIES
Making Kin with Soil, ESI University of Exeter and the Eden Project, 2023
WORKSHOPS
‘Soil Moves, Soil Behaves’, After the Green Revolution, Gloknos, Cambridge University, 2023
‘Mapping Emergence and Making Kin With Soil’, Environment & Sustainability, Exeter University, 2023
‘New Stories for Museum-objects’, Emergent Knowledge Bureau, with Russell Royer, 2021-2 (supported by Arts Council, England)
‘A character is a space to inhabit’, Architectural Association, with Russell Royer, 2022
‘When we first met’, Architectural Association, with Russell Royer, 2021
‘Potato Haikus’, UCL Multimedia Anthropology Lab, 2021
‘Mapping memories - Digital storytelling’, for Studio Morison, with Pontoon and Aspex, 2020
‘Inner city is my Island’, Tate Collective, Venice Biennale, in partnership with the British Council, 2018
TALKS/CONFERENCES
Panellist, Making Change One Harvest at a Time, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, 2022
Panellist, Collective Landscape Futures: Native Species, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, 2022
Guest Speaker, with Russell Royer, New models for the decolonised museum, Tate Britain, 2022
Artist Talk, Repair, Institute of Contemporary Art, Graz University of Technology, 2021
Guest contributor, Center for Plants & Culture, 2021
Artist Talk, Mapping the Cartographic, Next Museum, 2021
Conference Speaker, Multimedia Anthropology in the Anthropocene, UCL Anthropology Lab, 2021
Guest Lecturer, Curating Contemporary Design, Kingston School of Art x The Design Museum, 2020
RESEARCH & DESIGN
Artist/ Researcher, ‘Planetary Commons’, Radical Ecology, 2023
Designer/ Researcher, ‘Pollinator Pathmaker’ by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, 2020-23
Research and Development, Festival UK* 2022, 2020-21
Web and VR Design, Studio Morison, 2020
Architectural Assistant, WilkinsonEyre, 2017-2018
Design Assistant, Studio Furthermore, 2017
Co-producer, Late at Tate Programmes, Tate Britain, various 2016-18
Film production, Biryani! at Alchemy Film Festival, Amal – A Saïd Foundation Project, 2017
Film production, MoMA Teens, with Tate and MoMA New York, 2014
EDUCATION
Architectural Association, Master of Architecture (March)/ AA Diploma and AA Final Examination (ARB/RIBA Part 2), 2018-20
Bartlett School of Architecture, BSc Architecture/ Final Examination (ARB/RIBA Part 1), 2013-16
PRESS
The Guardian, From Potato Worlds to Dancing Vaginas: Ai Weiwei leads a dip into Witchcraft and Weird Nature, Feb 2023
Studio International, Super Natural, Dec 2022
Language, whether visual, spoken or intuited, serves as Iman’s primary tool to disturb and open pathways towards more-than-human worlds. She is interested in what it means to reorient ourselves around invisibilised bodies, inhabit them and readjust to their methods of rooting and re-routing. Iman’s work encourages conversations with scientists and academics about hierarchical relationships in natural history and plant science, considering intimacy and embodiment as not only affects, but also as means for inquiry.
Iman’s recent work includes a 3-year investigation into the epistemologies and migratory patterns of the potato. As part of this project, she created a film, installation and audio piece, which were exhibited at the Eden Project, Cornwall (2022/3), The Plumb, Toronto (2023) and Drugo More Gallery, Rijeka (2021).
She is currently artist-in-residence with the Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter and the Eden Project, working on a research project exploring the movements and behaviours of soils.
CV
EXHIBTIONS
Against Apartheid, KARST Contemporary Arts, 2023 (forthcoming)
Super Natural, The Eden Project, Cornwall, UK, 2022-23
On a Table, Over Time, The Plumb, Toronto, Canada, 2023
Mapping the Cartographic, Drugo More Gallery, Rijeka, 2022
Multimedia Encounters in the Anthropocene, UCL, London, UK, 2021-22
AA Live Around the World, 2020
Material Worlds, Architectural Association, 2019
Amphibious Habitats, La Terrica Gallery, Malaga, Spain, 2017
Biryani!, Southbank Centre, Alchemy Film Festival, 2017
Bartlett School of Architecture End of Year Shows, 2016, 2015, 2014
Secret 7” x Ideas Generation Gallery, Shoreditch, 2012
RESIDENCIES
Making Kin with Soil, ESI University of Exeter and the Eden Project, 2023
WORKSHOPS
‘Soil Moves, Soil Behaves’, After the Green Revolution, Gloknos, Cambridge University, 2023
‘Mapping Emergence and Making Kin With Soil’, Environment & Sustainability, Exeter University, 2023
‘New Stories for Museum-objects’, Emergent Knowledge Bureau, with Russell Royer, 2021-2 (supported by Arts Council, England)
‘A character is a space to inhabit’, Architectural Association, with Russell Royer, 2022
‘When we first met’, Architectural Association, with Russell Royer, 2021
‘Potato Haikus’, UCL Multimedia Anthropology Lab, 2021
‘Mapping memories - Digital storytelling’, for Studio Morison, with Pontoon and Aspex, 2020
‘Inner city is my Island’, Tate Collective, Venice Biennale, in partnership with the British Council, 2018
TALKS/CONFERENCES
Panellist, Making Change One Harvest at a Time, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, 2022
Panellist, Collective Landscape Futures: Native Species, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, 2022
Guest Speaker, with Russell Royer, New models for the decolonised museum, Tate Britain, 2022
Artist Talk, Repair, Institute of Contemporary Art, Graz University of Technology, 2021
Guest contributor, Center for Plants & Culture, 2021
Artist Talk, Mapping the Cartographic, Next Museum, 2021
Conference Speaker, Multimedia Anthropology in the Anthropocene, UCL Anthropology Lab, 2021
Guest Lecturer, Curating Contemporary Design, Kingston School of Art x The Design Museum, 2020
RESEARCH & DESIGN
Artist/ Researcher, ‘Planetary Commons’, Radical Ecology, 2023
Designer/ Researcher, ‘Pollinator Pathmaker’ by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, 2020-23
Research and Development, Festival UK* 2022, 2020-21
Web and VR Design, Studio Morison, 2020
Architectural Assistant, WilkinsonEyre, 2017-2018
Design Assistant, Studio Furthermore, 2017
Co-producer, Late at Tate Programmes, Tate Britain, various 2016-18
Film production, Biryani! at Alchemy Film Festival, Amal – A Saïd Foundation Project, 2017
Film production, MoMA Teens, with Tate and MoMA New York, 2014
EDUCATION
Architectural Association, Master of Architecture (March)/ AA Diploma and AA Final Examination (ARB/RIBA Part 2), 2018-20
Bartlett School of Architecture, BSc Architecture/ Final Examination (ARB/RIBA Part 1), 2013-16
PRESS
The Guardian, From Potato Worlds to Dancing Vaginas: Ai Weiwei leads a dip into Witchcraft and Weird Nature, Feb 2023
Studio International, Super Natural, Dec 2022