Setareh Noorani is an architect, researcher and curator at Nieuwe Instituut whose practice focuses on feminist, decolonial, non-institutional, and more-than-human perspectives in the way we build, remember and change cities. Setareh argues for alternative futures that foreground underexposed voices and forms of collectivity, translating research into exhibitions, publications, and public programs.
Her architectural approach is grounded in archival and curatorial methodologies, connecting past and present. Through her practice, she designs spaces that make visible erased or contested histories, proposing architectures of solidarity, memory, and justice. Her projects span built interventions, spatial research, and publications that question dominant value systems in art and design, employing a visual language that moves counter to the ‘white cube’. Her clients include Design Museum Den Bosch, Wereldmuseum Leiden, Metro54, Amsterdam Museum, Buro Stedelijk, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
She currently leads the project “New Currents: Indian Ocean Futures”, and previously co-initiated “Hidden Histories” (with Creative Industries Fund NL), curated the exhibition “Designing the Netherlands”, and initiated “Feminist Design Strategies”. She also led the long-term research project “Collecting Otherwise” and the transnational programme “Arus Balik – Shifting Currents”. She has presented and facilitated at institutions including Barnard College of Architecture – Columbia University, the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, ETH Zürich, Jameel Arts Centre, Geoffrey Bawa Trust, the British Museum, What Design Can Do, and Design Academy Eindhoven.
Noorani co-edited the publications Collecting Otherwise Manauals (Nieuwe Instituut, 2025), Remapping Collaborations Working Group (Nieuwe Instituut, 2025), Women in Architecture (nai010, 2023), and has been published in VOLUME, Footprint Journal, and Radical Housing Journal, and others. In 2021, she received the Museum Talent Prize, awarded by the Dutch Ministry of Culture and the Mondriaan Fund. She holds an MSc in Architecture (TU Delft, cum laude).
In her artistic work, Noorani explores public resistance and diasporic trauma through spatial research, (self-)publishing, and the disruption of dominant archives. She develops counter-archives that surface collective memory and lived experience. Recent residencies include Voorheen De Gemeente (2022 – 2024), Biënnale Gelderland (2022), DSGN-IN at The Black Archives (2021-2022), SHELTER IN PLACE/SHELTER IN SOLIDARITY (2021) at Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn (together with graphic designer Matt Plezier, as SMET, supported by the Creative Industries Fund Netherlands).
Setareh Noorani
