Leela Keshav


  Projects

      Archive of Stolen Seeds
      Birdscript
      Field Guide to the Botanical Imaginary
      Hauntings from the Sixth Extinction
      Stone Asemics  
      Seed Storytellers
      The Specimenisation of Sequoia
      The Seven Circles of Manoomin
      To Find a Waiting Fossil    
      Unmapping Landscape       

Workshops

      Upcoming
      Archive

Writing

      In print
      Online


About
Contact
Instagram

©2025 Leela Keshav














Leela Keshav is a transdisciplinary artist, writer and designer living in London. Her research-based practice intertwines narratives of plants, people and landscapes, speculating on reparative futures within human and more-than-human worlds. Weaving political ecology, landscape studies and critical cartography with decolonial and feminist frameworks, her work reckons with global ecologies that have been radically altered through Empire, from botanical gardens and monocrop agriculture to plantation ecologies.

With a background in architecture, her methods centre situated practice – such as site-writing, 1:1-scale drawing and walking – to consider colonial histories and their afterlives, and to imagine liberatory futures beyond the nature-culture dichotomy. Acting within the pluriverse, where many worlds are held within our Earth, she searches for botanical imaginaries neglected or overwritten by the universalising project of colonial modernity. Her starting point is often a single seed or a particular landscape; for example, Manoomin (wild rice) in The Seven Circles of Manoomin (2021), the rubber tree in A Field Guide to the Botanical Imaginary (2023) and the Peak District moorlands in Unmapping Landscape (2024). 

In May 2024, Leela was the inaugural writer-in-residence at Hauser & Wirth Somerset in partnership with ArtReview. Her work has been exhibited at the London Festival of Architecture, House of Annetta and Create Gallery Bristol, and her writing has been published in ArtReview, The Architectural Review and ROOM Magazine, among others.



Education


  • [2022-2024] Master in Architecture, Diploma Programme, Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, England
  • [2023] Programme member, New Architecture Writers, The Architecture Foundation
  • [2016-2021] Bachelor of Architectural Studies, Honours, With Distinction, Dean’s Honours List, Co-operative Program, University of Waterloo School of Architecture, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
  • [2019-2020] Exchange Student, Master of Science in Architecture, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands


Residencies


  • [May 2024] Hauser & Wirth Somerset “Write Now” residency in partnership with ArtReview 
  • [July 2023] Venice Biennale writing residency with New Architecture Writers cohort 5


  • Publications


Reviews and Essays

  • [November 2025] TAELON 7, The Architectural Review
  • [November 2025] Weyell Zipse, The Architectural Review
  • [November 2025] Studio MUTT, The Architectural Review
  • [September 2025] Wolves Lane, ICON Magazine 
  • [March 2025] Framing Landscape: The Construction of Conservation, Crumble Magazine
  • [March 2025] Citizenship as a Verb, We Made That Impact Report
  • [December 2024] Xi’an: Crafting a Future District, narrative essay for Heatherwick Studio
  • [November 2024] Civil Architecture, The Architectural Review
  • [November 2024] Dechelette Architecture, The Architectural Review
  • [November 2024] Paradigma Ariadne, The Architectural Review
  • [October 2024] Seeking the Ciguapa, ArtReview
  • [February 2024] Framing Landscape, AArchitecture 46: Down to Earth
  • [December 2023] Haus Hoinka, The Architectural Review

Poetry and Creative Writing


  • [April 2025] husk, Seedlings Magazine
  • [August 2024] Unmapping Landscape, Peaks of Colour Nature Writing Journal
  • [June 2024] Write Now, ArtReview
  • [April 2024] Unearthing Histories, Cultivating Futures: The Rubber Tree’s Story, ROOM Magazine

Illustration

  • [June 2024] A Recipe for Guerrilla Seeding Bloomsbury’s Private Gardens, AArchitecture 47: Up in the Air
  • [January 2024] A Field Guide to the Botanical Imaginary, Unootha x Ward Magazine
  • [October 2021] Oma and Patti, Chutney Magazine


  • Exhibitions


  • [November 2024] Group exhibition, Museum of Enclosure, House of Annetta, London, England
  • [September 2024] Group exhibition, The Active Image: Political Ecologies and Photographic Agency,  CREATE  Gallery, Bristol,  England
  • [June 2024] Poster commission for group exhibition and workshop, Abolitionist Futures, University of Leeds
  • [June–August 2024] Solo exhibition, Seed Storytellers: A Botanical Archive of London’s Square Mile, London Festival of Architecture, London, England
  • [June 2024] Academic exhibition, AA Projects Review 2024, Architectural Association, London, England


  • Podcasts


[June 2025] On the Steps of 36, Leela Keshav in conversation with Lex Fefegha for AirAA, a podcast by the Architectural Association
[April 2025] On the Steps of 36, Leela Keshav in conversation with Alessia Gammarota for AirAA
[February 2025] On the Steps of 36, Leela Keshav in conversation with Olivia Oldham for AirAA,
[July 2024] Live from the Voicing Pod: A Conversation on Migration and Belonging with author Jessica J Lee, organised by Urban Radicals for the London Festival of Architecture

Teaching

 
  •                [November 2024]  Invited guest critic,  Architectural Association Landscape Urbanism programme
  •                [August 2024] Tutor, Drawing Matter Architecture Summer School, London, England
  •                [July 2024] Workshop leader and counsellor, Collège Saint-Charles Garnier, Quebec City, Canada
  •                [2021–2022] English and Humanities Tutor, PAPER Education, Montreal, Canada


  • Events and Workshops


  •                 [January 2026] Co-facilitator,  Museum of Enclosure x Resolve Collective workshop at Dugdale Arts for the Land/Lines series, Enfield, London
  •                 [November 2025]  Facilitator and organiser, Archive of Prefiguration: Writing Spatial Futures public workshop at the Architectural Association, London
  •                 [November 2025]  Co-facilitator and organiser, Speculative Worldbuilding: Misreading Le Guin public workshop at the Architectural Association, London
  •                 [October 2025]  Facilitator, Collective Cartographies, public workshop at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve for the Community Ecologies programme, London
  •                 [October 2025]  Tour guide, The Lost Gardens of Covent Garden: An Experiment in Collective Walking,  Antiuniversity Festival
  •                 [September 2025] Co-facilitator, Tricking God, mapping workshop at the Royal College of Art, London
  •                 [July 2025]  Co-facilitator, Way/mark/ings Walkshop with Peaks of Colour, Peak District
  •                 [January–March 2024] Co-organiser, Self Organised: New Models for Learning lecture and event series, Architectural Association School of Architecture, London
  •              [Febuary 2024]  Lead organiser,  Community Garden Design-Build Workshop, Architectural Association
  •                 [November 2023] Co-organiser, Exquisite Resurrections, launch event for the New Architecture Writers Cohort 5 publication, House of Annetta, London


  • Professional Experience


  •                [2025–present] Programme Coordinator, New Architecture Writers, London, England            
  •                [2024–25] Junior Editor, Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, England
  •                [2021] Architect Intern, D’Ambrosio Architecture + Urbanism, Victoria, Canada
  •                [2019] Landscape Architect Intern, Taktyk, Paris, France
  •                [2018] Architect Intern, Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects, Paris, France
  •                [2018] Architect Intern, PLANT Architect Inc, Toronto, Canada
  •                [2017] Architect Intern, Alison Brooks Architects, London, England