Nicholas Muellner

Nicholas Muellner is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. He is the founding Co-Director of the M.F.A. in Image Text and ITI Press, where he shapes interdisciplinary education at the intersection of visual and textual practices.

He received a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Photography from Temple University. His academic and artistic trajectory reflects a deep engagement with narrative, memory, and the limits of photographic representation.

His research and creative work focus on interdisciplinary art, digital media, collaborative practice, and print media. Through books, exhibitions, and slide lectures, Muellner investigates how photography functions as both a documentary tool and a medium for literary, political, and personal storytelling. His projects often blur the lines between fact and fiction, exploring themes of isolation, historical memory, and ideological resistance—particularly in post-Soviet contexts.

His recent publications and exhibitions reveal a sustained inquiry into visual narratives, photobook design, and the emotional topography of landscapes. The themes across his works include constructed realities, archival ambiguity, and the poetics of absence, often using re-enactment and fictional documentation to probe deeper truths.

• John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography (2018)
• The John Gutmann Photography Fellowship Award (2017)
• Yaddo Colony Fellowship in Visual Arts (2017, 2014)
• Paris Photo Aperture Foundation Photobook of the Year Award – Shortlist (2018)
• Residency Fellowship, National Center for Contemporary Art, Saint Petersburg, Russia (2014)

Muellner advises and mentors within the Image Text M.F.A. program, guiding students in hybrid artistic practices. His work has been supported by grants from the Trust for Mutual Understanding and CEC Artslink, and he has held residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo. He performs slide lectures internationally at institutions such as MoMA P.S.1, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and The Photographers Gallery, further extending his scholarly and artistic reach.

As co-director of ITI Press, Muellner is actively involved in publishing and curatorial projects that support experimental image-text work, fostering a vibrant research and creative community around interdisciplinary art forms.