I am

Jordan Rowe

I am a curator, researcher, cultural producer and artist with an interest in urban cultures and rural identities.

I co-run the Cultural Topographics Research Unit, a collaborative research and public engagement studio with Dr David Anderson.

I produce and contribute to exhibitions, such as the co-curated ‘Reframing the Zulu Collection’ at the Powell-Cotton Museum (2026), ‘Who owns our public works?’ at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts (2025), ‘Doors of Learning: Microcosms of a Future South Africa’ at Bauhaus Dessau (2022) or ‘When Spring Smiles Again On This High Favoured Town’ at Stanley Arts (2022).

I create research projects, including ‘Signals and Sightlines’ (2026), and ‘Open Frame’ (2026), in addition to writing and editing publications, like Doors of Learning (Spector Books, 2023) and Urban Pamphleteer #9 – Reimagining the Night (UCL, 2022), .

I have served as the Museum of London’s first ever Urbanist in Residence, as a researcher at Theatrum Mundi (2020-21), and have also completed residencies at ZK/U Berlin (2021) and Björkö Konstnod, Stockholm (2023), which has been shortlisted for the Marŝarto24 Awards.

I work in film on a freelance basis as a producer and production manager, as well as supporting the research activities and organisational culture of Born By A River (2023-).

I have previously managed UCL’s Urban Laboratory (2014-21), worked as an EDI Manager on Race Equality Implementation at UCL (2021), and coordinated the Making Africa Urban ERC project at UCL (2019-21).

As part of my artistic practice, I am documenting a hike around the English coastline to reflect on currents of nationalism, Black ruralities and the ‘right to roam’.

I am a regular contributor to conferences, talks, panels, roundtables and crits on the creative city, situated practices, night spaces, gentrification, the urban essay film, and queer urbanisms.

I hold a BA (Hons) History and an MSc Urban Studies from University College London.

I work widely across Europe, currently between Paris and London, and recently in Berlin and Stockholm.

say hello@jordan-rowe.com

Projects

All projects

  • Open Frame: Embedding opportunity and access in short film productions

    In collaboration with Dr Keisha Bruce (independent researcher) and Steph Tari Odu (Founder & Executive Producer of Born By A River), I have authored a landmark research report examining how access, wellbeing, and organisational culture can be meaningfully embedded into short‑form film production. Open Frame: Embedding… more ›

  • Signals and Sightlines: BT Tower

    Research project exploring how strategic communications networks and infrastructural development shape our cities and public spaces. more ›

  • Open House Festival 2026

    As part of Open House Festival, cultural historian Dr David Anderson and I led a guided walk of Fitzrovia to explore how technological infrastructures shape our cities and public spaces. more ›

  • ‘This Place We Share’ at Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre

    I am taking part in a group photography exhibition at the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre, documenting my ongoing walk around the English coastline. more ›

  • Reframing the Zulu Collection

    Since the end of 2025 I worked with the Powell-Cotton Museum in Kent to build on the museum’s ongoing decolonisation work. Opening to the public on 18 July 2026, Reframing the Zulu Collection, is a new permanent exhibition, offering a re-interpretation of the museum’s Zulu collection.… more ›

  • London Walking Festival 2026

    In the 60th anniversary year of the opening of the BT Tower, this gentle linear walk from Fitzrovia to Primrose Hill invites participants to reflect on the ways our built environment supplements and shapes our natural world. more ›

  • ‘Win’ film premiere

    I hosted a Q&A panel as part of the premiere of Born By A River’s short film Win on Wednesday 1 October at the Curzon Hoxton in London. The tender short stars Shaniqua Okwok (Small Axe) and Martins Imhangbe (Bridgerton), and is directed by Steph Tari… more ›

  • Meanderings of Marques

    I have begun to use a new public-facing blogging platform to collate my writings on the England Coast Path project and host a whole range of miscellaneous topics from my idiosyncratic adventures around the UK and Europe. The blog will evolve in the future, including the… more ›

  • Who owns our public works?

    I was commissioned to produce an installation as part of an exhibition by the artist Cecilia Hedlund at Konstakademien, the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts (30 Nov 2024 – 18 Jan 2025). My audio piece ‘A Conversation of Intentionality’, sees my eponymous host invite the… more ›

  • Museums Association Conference 2024

    For the second year in a row, I was in receipt of funding from the Museum Association’s Member Support Fund and Saxton Bampfylde, in order to attend the UK’s major museum industry conference, hosted on this occasion at the Royal Armouries in Leeds across four days… more ›

  • The Gathering 2024

    I was selected to join iniva’s The Gathering, a unique space centring Global Majority UK-based artists and cultural workers to convene in exploration of restorative practices and to build frameworks for stronger relationships and more sustainable arts ecologies.  The two-day event took place at 180 Health… more ›

  • ‘Win’ short film production

    I worked as Access and Operations Coordinator – part of the production team – for Born By A River on the short film Win directed by Steph Tari Odu. Shot on location in North Kent between 5-7 September 2024, this was part of a longer-term freelance… more ›

  • Allemansrätten exhibition at ZK/U Berlin

    As part of the January 2024 edition of ZK/U Berlin’s OPENHAUS, I curated a studio space as a pilot presentation of my ongoing ‘Coastal Narratives’ art-research project. The exhibition showcased a mixture of staged self-photography, video, mapping and text from my month-long residency at Björkö Konstnod… more ›

  • Museums Association Conference 2023

    I was pleased to be offered Members Support Funding to attend the UK’s major museum industry conference, hosted at The Glasshouse in Gateshead across four days in November 2023. The MA conference is an incredibly important opportunity for further professional development, and as an independent freelancer… more ›

  • Walking as Practice residency at Björkö Konstnod

    I was selected to contribute to the process-based residency programme ‘Walking As Practice’ in the northern Stockholm archipelago. The focus was on how walking is interlocked in our diverse artistic practices through fieldwork and seminars. I used the residency to refine the goals and intended outputs… more ›

  • East Germany as a space for solidarity encounters

    I contributed to a two-day exploratory workshop at the GRASSI Museum in Leipzig (22-23 September 2023) to discuss encounters of solidarity among migrants from different postsocialist and postcolonial backgrounds in ‘East Germany’. The workshop was interested in unearthing forms of solidarity (political, conceptual, cultural, intimate) that… more ›

  • Spector Books publish Doors of Learning

    I have contributed to the creation of a book that accompanies the Bauhaus Dessau exhibition I co-curated. In 1988, a seminar was held at the Bauhaus Dessau as part of the UN-HABITAT programme that dealt with questions of housing construction in ‘developing countries’. A prefabricated building… more ›

  • Queering the built environment curriculum

    I contributed to a chapter in the publication Engaged Urban Pedagogy: Participatory practices in planning and place-making edited by Lucy Natarajan and Michael Short, and published by UCL Press (2023). Co-written and researched with Celine Lessard, Renée Etokakpan, Juliana Martins, Corin Menuge, Ramandeep Shergill, and Michael… more ›

  • Critical Dialogues of the Post-Covid City

    I was a panellist on a UCL-University of Toronto Strategic Partnership Seminar on 20 April 2023, organised by the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL. We discussed the challenges faced across cities in light of specific sustainable development goals and their influence on the broad range of urban built… more ›

  • Doors of Learning: Microcosms of a Future South Africa

    I co-curated the exhibition Doors of Learning: Microcosms of a Future South Africa (4 Aug 2022 – 15 Jan 2023) at Bauhaus Dessau. The exhibition considered the crisis in education under apartheid South Africa, and the spatialisation of international solidarity through African National Congress (ANC) exile… more ›

  • (In)Visible Cities film season

    I was commissioned to write an essay and film an introduction for the (In)Visible Cities film season at Close Up Film Centre in November 2022. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s novel of the same name, the season – curated by Massimo Iannetti (National Film and Television School)… more ›

  • Economy and Trade in Tanzania workshop lead

    I was invited by Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung to lead two workshops in the World Café format as part of their Tanzania Network event on ‘Economy and Trade in Tanzania’. Taking place in Berlin between 7-9 October 2022, I spoke about my research into GDR architecture in ANC camps… more ›

  • ixia Producer Forum

    ixia: the National Public Art Think Tank invited me to contribute to a closed roundtable/focus group forum to discuss the organisation’s future after its loss of Arts Council England core funding in 2015, in the wider context of national cuts to arts provision and to sector… more ›

  • The Late Museum exhibition at ZK/U Berlin

    Towards the end of my residency at ZK/U Berlin in August 2021, I presented my work in the form of a studio exhibition, ‘The Late Museum’, which considered the city’s recently opened Humboldt Forum. Located on a highly contested site that formerly hosted the Palace of… more ›

  • Culture and Community Spaces at Risk masterclass lead

    I was commissioned by We Made That to lead a masterclass on cultural infrastructure in London, as part of their work with the Greater London Authority’s Culture at Risk team. I led a group of citizen researchers on a tour of South Norwood and subsequent visit… more ›

  • When spring smiles again on this high favoured town

    I collaborated with urban anthropologist Joseph Cook (UCL) to produce an exhibition proposing an alternative heritage for South Norwood, as part of the Inventing South Norwood programme funded by Historic England’s High Street Heritage Action Zones, managed and hosted by Stanley Arts and supported by Croydon… more ›

  • Rethinking Art Galleries and Museums workshop

    I presented a paper on my museums research at the University of Manchester-AHRC-Manchester Art Gallery ‘Rethinking Art Galleries and Museums: Interventions, Collections and Communities’ workshop on 22 January 2022. I was part of the ‘Troubling Legacies: Institutional Infrastructures, Advocacy, Anti-racism’ afternoon session, and spoke about the… more ›

  • Whitechapel Gallery ‘Angel Alley’ jury member

    I was asked to join the jury for a curatorial commission at Whitechapel Gallery in December 2021 concerning the institution’s responsibility for Angel Alley, a narrow street situated between Freedom Press bookshop and the gallery itself. Formerly a throughway, this street is now a contained space… more ›

  • Urban Pamphleteer #9: Reimagining the night

    Following years of supporting the Urban Pamphleteer through my role as Centre Manager of UCL Urban Laboratory, I was pleased to have the opportunity to co-edit an edition of the series relating to my own research interest of the urban night. Published in December 2021, Urban… more ›

  • The Killing of Mark Duggan with Forensic Architecture

    Following a screening of Forensic Architecture’s The Killing of Mark Duggan (2019) and an introduction by FA’s Nicholas Masterton, I acted as respondent at this event organised by The Bartlett Screening Room on 3 November 2021. Forensic Architecture is a research agency based at Goldsmiths University… more ›

  • Residency at ZK/U Berlin

    I received a Developing Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England in 2021 that funded a residency at the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik in Berlin for five months between May and October 2021. The residency was an opportunity for me to further develop the… more ›

  • Urban Lab Films curation

    For seven years between 2014 and 2021, I curated London’s only regular film screening programme documenting cities and their social lives. Organised through UCL Urban Laboratory, Urban Lab Films facilitated public debate informed by scholarly and artistic practice. Since 2016, we largely worked in partnership with… more ›

  • Unfinished Symphonies: Transformational Decolonial Urbanism

    I was invited to present a paper at the Unfinished Symphonies event series hosted by The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and Wits University in July 2021. The online roundtables brought together staff and students from Witswatersrand University and UCL to share and discuss work-in-progress on… more ›

  • Jury member for Architecture Film Festival London 2021

    I was a jury member for the second edition of the Architecture Film Festival London, part of the London Festival of Architecture. The role included evaluating and awarding a winner across six categories: Documentary (Feature Length, max. 120min); Fiction (Short, max. 30min); Experimental (Short, max. 30min);… more ›

  • Sound Advice presents Now You Know

    I’ve written an article (‘Remote’) for Now You Know, a publication exploring spatial inequality in architecture. Exclusion and racial bias are built into our cities. In its debut publication, Sound Advice gathered the thoughts and reflections of more than 50 architects and urbanists of colour in… more ›

  • ‘Victoria’ and ‘State of Exception’ at the Open City Documentary Festival 2020

    During the 2020 edition of London’s annual Open City Documentary Festival, I was commissioned to contribute to a number of activities. I wrote an accompanying essay forVictoria, a collaborative directorial effort by the Belgian trio Sofie Benoot, Liesbeth De Ceulaer and Isabelle Tollenaere, and one of… more ›

  • UCL Bike Buddy

    We need to get more people on bikes as we begin returning to offices, so I’m very happy to offer my cycling services to UCL colleagues! I wrote a little piece for Sustainable UCL on how I got into cycling, and how nervous riders can feel… more ›

  • Future Audiences at the Dublin Festival of Curiosity

    On 17 July 2020, I was very happy to participate in Dublin’s annual Festival of Curiosity. The panel questioned how cultural audiences will evolve in a post-COVID-19 world. How will engagement and participation change as cultural institutions address social justice issues? Will the current crises speed… more ›

  • ICNS.LX: 1st International Conference on Night Studies

    Alongside Mia Rafalowicz-Campbell, I presented a paper at the international ICNS.LX conference, originally due to be hosted in Lisbon, but moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The abstract of our talk is below, and you can watch our presentation on YouTube (from 26:10). Paper abstract:… more ›

  • Night Scenes conference

    Alongside Mia Rafalowicz-Campbell, I presented a paper in this online series organised as part of a Humanities in the European Research Area project on night spaces and migrant communites in Europe. Our paper – ‘Night Views: Expanding the Field of Urban Night Studies Through Student-led Policy… more ›

  • Narratives of Somers Town – the object of study

    I participated and presented in this closed workshop organised by a grassroots group attempting to set up a Somers Town History Space. In the midst of destabilising change and the prospect of even more at Euston, the Somers Town community has recently been the object of… more ›

  • Constructing Realities – Urban Surveillance

    I chaired a panel between artists and researchers Henrietta Williams and Merijn Royaards at The Bartlett School of Architecture’s Constructing Realities lecture series in Here East on 27 February 2020. During the event, the artists’ short-film collaboration Aeronautica was screened, exposing the gradual dominance of our… more ›

  • ‘The Street’ film discussion

    As part of my curation of the Urban Lab Films series, I chaired a post-screening discussion of Zed Nelson’s The Street (2019) at Curzon Bloomsbury, in collaboration with Bertha DocHouse. The acclaimed film is a moving portrait of an area in east London being quickly transformed… more ›

  • At the frontiers of the urban: thinking concepts and practices globally

    I was the organiser of this major international conference exploring emerging themes and critical methodologies at the frontiers of urban theory and practice, hosted at UCL in 2019. Comprised of 34 panels and six plenary sessions, it was organised according to three broad thematics: Reshaping Urban… more ›

  • City, Essay, Film

    I co-curated this one-day symposium and accompanying film screening programme alongside David Anderson (UCL) in June and July 2019. An international line-up of researchers, practitioners, artists and critics joined us for a series of conversations and screenings on the concept and practice of the urban essay… more ›

  • Power to the Citizen! manifesto

    In 2017 I co-produced a manifesto for the public authoring of our cities as a call-to-action for academics, digital practitioners and citizens. Power to the Citizen! outlines key ideas emerging from a 2017 debate on data co-creation in the digital city. Challenging the rhetoric of unimaginable… more ›

  • Bloomsbury Festival: Activism and Architects of Change – ‘Urban Storytelling’

    I presented two pieces of work during the 2018 Bloomsbury Festival as part of a session on urban storytelling. The first was a project where I visited every Tennyson Road in Greater London, in order to consider how unremarkable streetscapes can help us form clearer understandings… more ›

  • Planning Perspectives review of Richard Florida’s ‘The New Urban Crisis’

    Alongside Sidra Ahmed, Olivia Smith, and Andrew Harris, I wrote a review of the urbanist Richard Florida’s book The New Urban Crisis: how our cities are increasing inequality, deepening segregation, and failing the middle-class – and what we can do about it for the academic journal Planning… more ›

  • Animating the interstice: Protest as a creative act on the fringe of the ‘creative city’

    Regular strikes by university staff in the UK sparked a great deal of debate in 2018. I reflected on the spatial implications of the UCU strike and how these might challenge our understanding of ‘creative city’ discourse in an article for UCL Urban Laboratory’s Medium page.… more ›

  • Urbanising the Museum roundtable

    I was a participant in a Theatrum Mundi workshop in April 2018 on what conditions constitute urbanity, and what it means for a museum to embody those conditions. The roundtable was organised within the context of the Museum of London making plans to leave its purpose-built modernist structure at… more ›

  • ‘Queer Urbanisms’: Cross-disciplinary conversations on sexualities, queerness and space

    I chaired a session on ‘Queer Urbanisms’ as part of a half-day symposium supported by the Royal Geographic Society (with IBG) that brought together postgraduates working in range of disciplines and fields to explore research centring sexualities, queerness and space. The event sought to create a… more ›

  • MRes Architecture crit at the RCA

    I was invited to contribute to a crit on the MRes Architecture programme at the Royal College of Arts on 6 February 2018. Led by the student research collective of the course, I was joined by Duncan Harte (filmmaker), Rose Lejeune (curator), Shai Akram (designer, Studio… more ›

  • Edge: Situated Practice in Art, Architecture and Urbanism

    I organised a 2017 collaboration with the Folkestone Triennial which brought together conversations on architecture, public contemporary art and urban ‘placemaking’. The multi-disciplinary range of speakers, performers and creative masterclass leads, drew on their own individual approaches and fields of operation to generate a wider conversation… more ›

  • New Cultural Infrastructure: Can we design the conditions for culture?

    I was an invited participant in an LSE Cities-Theatrum Mundi roundtable bringing makers of culture together with makers of cultural infrastructure, hosted at The Trampery, Old Street, in December 2016. In his mayoral manifesto, Sadiq Khan announced his intention to create a Cultural Infrastructure plan: a strategy for… more ›

  • Engaged Urbanism: Cities and Methodologies

    I worked as an Editorial Assistant on this volume published by Bloomsbury in 2016 that explores innovative and experimental methodologies designed by academics, artists, activists and others to produce new knowledge about cities. What binds the diverse collection of academic disciplines is a commitment to understanding… more ›

  • The Storm: A Utopian Forecast for London?

    As part of my work with UCL Urban Laboratory, I co-hosted a dialogue and collaboration with artist collective Fourthland at Somerset House on 29 June 2016. Employing an experimental pedagogy – using performance as research – we unpicked narratives of London’s regeneration. The Storm: A Utopian Forecast for… more ›

  • Turning Tables: Reporting from the Education Front

    This installation was a contribution I made to the 15th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale as part of the Erasmus-funded URBAN LAB+ network, a collection of urban laboratories from across the world. The roundtable design was a node to the circular nature of pedagogical transfer… more ›

  • Cities Methodologies exhibition series

    In 2014 I organised two editions of Cities Methodologies, a peer-reviewed exhibition and programme of events hosted by UCL Urban Laboratory and the Slade School of Fine Art to showcase innovative urban research methodologies. Visitors at Cities Methologies encounter a marketplace of urbanism, where diverse methods… more ›

Jordan Rowe

Urban research, projects and curation

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