Nikolay Smirnov is a geographer, artist, curator, and researcher, who works with geographical imaginations and the representations of space and place in art, science, museums, and everyday life. His practice focuses on analyzing and implementing complex narratives through texts and exhibitions. Smirnov studied at the Geography Department of Moscow State University and at the Rodchenko Art School in Moscow. His co-curated projects include Metageography and Permafrost (Arctic Biennale, Yakutsk, 2016). In 2023–24, he was a research assistant at the documenta Institut (Kassel). Since 2024, Smirnov has been a doctoral student at the DFG Research Training Group "Organizing Architectures" and the Department of Architecture, City-Planning, and Landscape Planning at the University of Kassel, working on a dissertation that focuses on the geo-architectures of Soviet modernism and the role of geo-imagination in its design.