A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
A headshot of SAIC faculty member Giovanni Aloi

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Giovanni Aloi

Professor, Adjunct

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Bio

Dr. Giovanni Aloi (he/him) is an author, educator, and curator specializing in the representation of nature and the environment in art. He is the Editor in Chief of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture. Aloi is the author of Art & Animals (2011), Speculative Taxidermy: Natural History, Animal Surfaces, and Art in the Anthropocene (2018), Why Look at Plants? The Vegetal Emergence in Contemporary Art (2019), Lucian Freud – Herbarium (2019), and the editor of Posthumanism in Art and Science (2020), Vegetal Entwinements in Philosophy and Art (2023), Estado Vegetal: Performance and Plant Thinking (2023), I’m Not an Artist: Reclaiming Creativity in the Age of Infinite Content (2025), Lawn (2025). Aloi has contributed to BBC radio, PBS TV, worked at Whitechapel Art Gallery and Tate Galleries in London, and currently is USA correspondent for Esse Magazine. He has curated exhibitions in the US and Europe and is co-editor of the University of Minnesota Press series Art after Nature.

Education: BA, 1997 Fine Art—Theory and Practice, Milan—S. Marta Fine Art College; PgD, 2003 Art History, Goldsmiths University of London; MA, 2004 Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University of London; PGCE, 2008 Institute of Education, London; Ph.D., 2014 Goldsmiths University of London.

Awards: 2024, DCASE Grant for Urban+Nature Sonic Pavilion, Chicago; 2024, Terra Foundation Grant for Materialities exhibition at Driehaus Museum; 2022, recipient of SAIC Faculty Enrichment Grant; 2020, Karen and Jim Frank Excellence in Teaching Award; 2019, Lucian Freud Herbarium listed among Best Art Books by The Evening Standard, Hyperallergic, Arts Desk, and The New European; 2019, Lucian Freud Herbarium nominated for Berger Art History Award Prize; 2018, Why Look at Plants? – Outstanding Academic Titles Choice Award; 2019, recipient of SAIC Faculty Enrichment Grant; 2018, recipient of the 2018 Literary Lions Award for Art History Research; 2017, recipient of SAIC Diversity Infusion Grant; 2016, recipient of SAIC Faculty Enrichment Grant; 2015, recipient of EAGER Grant 2015 (early–concept grants for exploratory research), role: mentor to graduate students researching plants in contemporary art; 2015, recipient of SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) Grant 2015-2020. Collaborative five years project titled Digital Animalities focusing on animal presence in digital media.

Publications: 

Monographs: Contracted: Aloi, G. Avant-Gardeners (London: Prestel) 2027; Contracted: Aloi, G. Land Art, Art of the World series (London and New York: Thames & Hudson) 2026; Forthcoming: Aloi, G. Lawn (London: Bloomsbury) 2025; Forthcoming: Aloi, G. I Am Not an Artist (London: Bloomsbury) 2024; Forthcoming: Aloi, G. Botanical Revolutions (Los Angeles: Getty) 2024; Aloi, G. Lucian Freud Herbarium (New York: Prestel) 2019; Aloi, G. Speculative Taxidermy: Natural History, Animal Surfaces, and Art in the Anthropocene (New York: Columbia University Press) 2017; Aloi, G. Art & Animals, part of the series ‘Art &…’ (London: I B Tauris) 2011.

Edited Collections: Aloi, G. (Advisor and Co-Author) Butterfly: Exploring the Entomological World (London: Phaidon) 2025; Aloi, G. (Advisor and Co-Author) Tree: Exploring the Arboreal World (London: Phaidon) 2022; Aloi, G. (Co-Author) Garden: Exploring the Horticultural World (London: Phaidon) 2023; Aloi, G. (Ed.) Manuela Infante: Estado Vegetal (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) 2023; Aloi, G. And Marder, M. (Eds.) Vegetal Entwinements in Philosophy and Art (Boston: MIT) 2022; Aloi, G. (Co-Author) Ocean: Exploring the Marine World (London: Phaidon) 2022; Aloi, G. (Co-Author) Bird: Exploring the Ornithological World (London: Phaidon) 2021; Aloi, G. and McHugh, S. (Eds.) Posthumanism in Art and Science: A Reader (New York: Columbia University Press) 2021; Aloi, G. (Co-Author) Flower: Exploring the World in Bloom (London: Phaidon) 2020; Aloi, G. (Consultant Editor and Co-Author) Animal: Exploring the Zoological World (London: Phaidon) 2019; Aloi, G. (Ed.) Botanical Speculations (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars) 2019; Aloi, G. (Editor and Principal Author) Why Look at Plants? (Leiden: Brill) 2018; Aloi (Ed.) Antennae 10: A Decade of Art and the Non-Human 07-17, (AntennaeProject/Forlaget 284) 2017.

Essays in Edited Collections and Catalogs (selected): Forthcoming: ‘In Conversation’ in Julian Montague, exhibition catalog, 2024; Forthcoming: ‘To Hear and See Vegetal Being’ in Lerin/Hystad, exhibition catalog, 2024; ‘Land Politics: Decolonizing, Re-envisioning, Repairing’ in Soils Matter, published by University of Bolzano and PAV Tourin in collaboration with Bruno Books; ‘Speculative Phytopoetics: Towards Vegetal Kinship’ in Prudence Gibson (ed) The Herbarium Tales, Open Humanities Press, 2024; ‘Patterns of Human-Vegetal Desire’ in Diana Scherer: Patterns of Human-Vegetal Desire, exhibition catalog, 2023; ‘Towards the last Laocoön’ in Everyone Talks About the Weather, exhibition catalog, Fondazione Prada, Venezia, 2023; ‘Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits’ in Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits, exhibition catalog, Garden Museum, London 2022; ‘Anicka Yi: The Ferality of Scent’ in Anicka Yi – Metaspores, exhibition catalog, Hangar Bicocca, Milan, Italy, 2022; ‘Vegetal Attunements’ in The Botanical Turn, exhibition catalog (London Ontario: McIntosh Gallery) 2022.

Editorial work: 

Plant Perspectives, Member of Editorial Board, White Horse Press, since July 2023.

Art after Nature, Co-Editor with Caroline Picard, University of Minnesota Press Book Series, since August 2018: Art after Nature exposes new aesthetic territories defined by the recent ontological turn in the humanities. In the face of the unprecedented changes defining our relationships with the natural world, modes of critical and political artistic engagement are adapting in response. Books published in this series engage with the politics of the Anthropocene as a concept to problematize recent philosophical waves like Animal Studies, Posthumanism, and Speculative Realism in art and writing.

Antennae, The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, Editor in Chief, since September 2006: Antennae is free to the public, non-funded by institutions, and not supported by grants or philanthropists. The Journal’s format and contents are informed by the concepts of ‘knowledge transfer’ and ‘widening participation’. Its independent status has allowed us to give a voice to scholars and artists who were initially not taken seriously by mainstream publishers.

Exhibitions:

A Tale of Today: Materialities: Exhibition of work by 13 artists in response to selected material histories from Driehaus Museum in Chicago, 2025.

The UrbanNature Sonic Pavilion: An exhibition of original soundworks to be showcased on the one-of-a-kind multi-channel system of Chicago’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park for summer 2024.

Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits: Exhibition on Lucian Freud’s paintings of plants for the Garden Museum in London based on the book Lucian Freud Herbarium, 2022.

Animal Crossings: Exhibition co-curated with artist Maria Bronkema for Fountain House Gallery in NYC, 2022.

Leftover and Over: Exhibition at Spring Break Art Show in NYC featuring the work of artists Andrew Orlosky and Lesley Bodzy, 2022.

Earthly Observatory: Exhibition on art and the Anthropocene curated in collaboration with Dr. Andrew Yang for the Faculty Curated Projects Program at SAIC, 2021.

Digital Animalities: Exhibition on animals and the digital interface held in Toronto at John B. Aird Gallery and Contact Gallery between October 30 and December 15, 2018. Commissioned by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2018.

Plants, Animals, Machine, Object!: Program of short films co-curated for Sector 2337, Chicago, 2015.

Animals on Film: Program of short films curated for ISAZ2012, Cambridge, 2012.

Animal Acoustics: Online exhibition in conjunction with the publication of Antennae’s issue n.27 titled ‘The Acoustic Animal,’ 2012.

Personal Statement

My publications, teaching, and curatorial work center on the interdisciplinary fields of human-animal studies, critical plant studies, posthumanism, new materialism, bio art, and environmentalism. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks and methodologies these disciplines offer, I critically examine and challenge outdated Western conceptions of nature. My practice seeks to deconstruct the cultural entanglements of colonialism, materiality, race, gender, and representation, fostering a decolonized understanding of our present.

My lectures adopt a global perspective, informed by indigenous and embodied knowledges, alongside both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions. In the face of climate change and the sixth mass extinction—challenges that demand ethical reflection across interconnected local and global scales—my courses explore the multicultural interdependencies that underpin more sustainable futures.

To study the representation of nature in art today is to embrace a holistic and global perspective—one that invites inquiry, fosters critical rethinking, and opens pathways for re-envisioning our relationship with the natural world.

I am a proud first-generation college student, immigrant, son of immigrants, and member of the LGBTQA+ community. 

Work

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course discusses the development of photography as both an art and a tool, including its invention, the initial social reaction to the photograph, the careers of major photographers, movements, and commercial publishers. The interrelationships between photography, art, science, and society are emphasized.

Class Number

1062

Credits

3

Description

Taxidermy became the most important tool of knowledge of natural history museums during the Victorian period when it fascinated audiences with its hyperrealist aura. Yet, it was never considered a form of fine art. Today taxidermy has entered the gallery space, but not on the merit of its accurate realism. The opposite is true: unrealistic taxidermy is the symptom of a difficult relationship with nature and alterity that marks today's ecological and capitalist global crises.

Class Number

2273

Credits

3

Description

Plant?s perceived passivity and resilient silence have relegated the vegetal world to the cultural background of human civilization. However, the recent emergence of plants in the gallery space is an invitation to reappraise this relationship at a time of deep ecological and social crisis. This course focuses on plants to unravel histories of colonialism, address gender biases, racial discrimination, and social injustice. We explore how artists and scholars working at the intersection of art, science, philosophy, and indigenous knowledge are rethinking our relationships with plants in order to envision more sustainable and fairer futures.

This course proposes a rich, diverse, and multicultural perspective on the many roles plants play in our lives. It inlcudes lectures, close readings, screenings, museum visits, discussions, collaborative coursework, and contributions by Chicago-based organizations working with local communities and plants. The work of scholars and artist Yota Batsaki, Elain Gan, Vivien Sansour, Vandana Shiva, Mogaje Guihu, Anna Tsing, Monica Gagliano, Eduardo Kac, Jamaica Kinkaid, Derek Jarman, Wangari Maathai, Zayaan Khan, Kapwani Kiwanga, Maria Thereza Alves, Shela Sheikh, Michael Marder, Monica Galliano, Rashid Johnson, Uriel Orlow and many more will provide students with a comprehenisve and global and very contemporary perspective on the subject.

Coursework includes weekly reading responses, a formal/final research paper, a test, and a presentation.

Class Number

1057

Credits

3

Description

The art world is a complex ecosystem. What should one know about its geographical and ecological dimensions in order to pursue a rewarding career?
The rise of identity politics, diversity, and multidisciplinarity, as well as the growing
importance of collaborative practices, calls to abolish museums, and intensifying criticism of our cultural institutions' colonialist foundations, have made it more challenging than ever to navigate this rapidly changing landscape. This course deconstructs the romantic myth of the artist to foreground alternative and sustainable eco-models and systems of interdependency. Together, through the analysis of case studies borrowed from posthumanism and specualtive philosophy, we map the contradictions and paradoxes that today shape the relationship between artists, institutions, and the art market, to help practitioners of all kinds redefine their identities and reposition themselves in the contemporary art world.
The course will involve a range of sources and study materials including selected clips from films, novels, classic academic readings on the artworld, and current interviews with artists, curators, and museum directors. The course will address current urgent themes like social justice, equity, accessibility, marginalization, racism/sexism, institutional critique, etc. The work is based on my new book titled 'I'm not an artist: reclaiming creativity in the age of free content that will be published by Bloomsbury in Spring 2025. Important scholarly and professional voices included will feature: Sampada Aranke, James Elkins, Mark Dion, Timothy Morton, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway, Mandy-Suzanne Wuong, Vivien Sansour, Edgar Heap of Birds, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Pamela Sneed, Anicka Yi, Cecilia Vicuna, Okwui Enwezor, Eyal Weizman, Robin Wall Kimmerer and many more.
Course work will include weekly reading responses, an essay, a report, and a presentation.

Class Number

2353

Credits

3

Description

This seminar considers past and present histories of 'visual culture' (a spectrum of representation including painting, photography, film, installation, performance, geological and geographical mapping, data processing, and journalism) which focus on the specific challenges posed by current political, ecological, and cultural crises. What new roles can art play in mapping and critically addressing the interconnectedness of the ever-so-fragile ecologies we inhabit? From the construction of posthuman identities through new and old media to the fragmentation of post-photography, the new reconfigurations of nature and culture, and the urgency posed by climate change and unprecedented diasporas, this seminar focuses on new conceptions of art as a political tool capable of outlining new trajectories in the absence of cultural certainties.

The course will focus on the key intersections of art and science from the 1700s through to today considering important philosophical traditions like Cartesianism and Kantian philosophy, thereafter moving on to explore issues of colonialism and decolonization of nature. The course focuses on the work of contemporary artists and scholars who have actively engaged in the definition of the anbthropocene and its new aesthetic models designed to reimagine our relationship with the non-human through new perspectives on gender, race, and interconnectedness. Coursework will involve weekly reading responses in the form of Canvas discussions that will be elaborated in class and a final major project.
Readings include: Haraway, D. J. (1984) `Teddy bear patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of
Eden, in Social Text, n. 11, Winter, pp.20-64

Class Number

1068

Credits

3

Description

Materials link past and present histories in original and compelling ways, connecting different cultures, geographies, and identities. No longer the passive media that artists breathe life into, today materials are always political: active participants in the ongoing negotiations involved in the envisioning of cultural and ecological sustainable futures.

In this course, we deconstruct past and present histories of materiality in art, exploring agency, memory, and identity in the broader context of the power relations that shape these archetypal concepts. Through the philosophical lenses of Queer Ecologies, Indigenous Knowledge, Black Humanities, Anthropocene Studies, and New Materialism, among others, we will navigate the cross-currents of artistic disciplines, media, and ethics that currently redefine political discourses at a time in which all of us are reconsidering the nature of truth, the factual foundations of our histories, and the validity of bearing witness.

Class Number

1926

Credits

3

Description

This course is designed to help students situate themselves in the broader context of contemporary theoretical discourses and practices. This is an essential component of a graduate thesis. Students will undertake independent research, source a broad range of references drawn from the approaches and outputs of artists, philosophers, and other culture-makers, will synthesize complex information, and partake in asynchronous and synchronous discussions for the purpose of competently and critically theorising their own practices. Periodic deadlines help students organize their workflow, from the proposal and outline to the drafting stages. While since the early 2000s, Giovanni Aloi has been deeply involved in the fields of animal-studies, critical plant studies, ecological studies, and Posthumanism, he is also able and willing to supervise students working on a variety of topics. Students will be able to explore creative writing approaches, although, in all instances, a thesis must include a thoroughly researched and theoretically grounded, extensive introduction. Prerequisite: Must be enrolled in the Low-Residency MFA Program.

Class Number

2022

Credits

3