Nehal El-Hadi | Writer, researcher, editor.

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I’m a writer, researcher, and editor based in Toronto. I was born in Khartoum, Sudan and grew up between there, London, U.K. (where I completed undergrad at University College London), and Muscat, Oman.

I hold two editorial positions: Science + Technology Editor at The Conversation Canada, an academic news site, and Editor-in-Chief of Studio Magazine, a biannual magazine dedicated to contemporary Canadian craft and design.

I’m trained as a science and environmental journalist — I attended j-school at the University of Regina, interning at The Discovery Channel Canada. I researched environmental risk communications in Canadian mainstream media for my Master in Environmental Studies degree at York University. I also hold a PhD in Planning from the University of Toronto, where my research examined the interplays between material and virtual public spaces for women of colour social justice activists. This is where my ongoing project on the production of presence began, as well as my investigations into ethical data collection and management for planners, journalists, and healthcare professionals.

I have written for various media, and in formats ranging from journalistic reportage and peer-reviewed articles to literary nonfiction, poetry, exhibition texts, and scripts for film and theatre. My work has been published in academic journals, artist catalogues, anthologies, magazines, and online. I often give talks on my research, and frequently participate in panels as speaker and moderator, and I occasionally produce and host audio projects. I frequently write for and collaborate with artists, including Coco Guzmán, Azza El Siddique, Sandra Brewster, Jessica Karuhanga, Charmaine Lurch, and Yaw Tony; I recently curated Neglected Nostalgia, a solo exhibition by Elicser Elliott at BAND Gallery in Toronto.

In my professional capacities, I have served as a judge for several organizations, including: the National Magazine Awards (Canada); the 2023 Cheongju Craft Biennale: Craft and the City (South Korea); and the Toronto Arab Film Festival (Canada).

I sit on the Board of Directors for the Provocation Ideas Festival, and was previously a member of the FIXT POINT Arts & Media board and the Digital Communities Advisory Panel at the Centre for Free Expression (Toronto Metropolitan University). I hold a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and was previously a Visiting Scholar at the CITY Institute at York University.

I maintain an independent research practice where the meta-question that guides my work is:

How do our relationships — with places, technologies, materials, other people, non-human and more-than-human life — affect how we define what it means to be human?

I’m focused on two large research projects that examine this. The first is on human-sand relations. The second is on data collection and surveillance, which draws from and extends my doctoral research; the current iteration of this work is a public space performance called The Observer Effect, developed in residency at The Theatre Centre in Toronto.

I am fluent in Arabic, and have a professional interest in Arabophone arts, craft, design and cultural practices, as well as Arabic/English translation. I have several hobbies that occasionally transmute into projects — flamenco, boxing, puppetry, pattern design — and several topics I would like to explore further when time permits. I’m also interested in writing more for film and theatre. I very much enjoy collaboration to continue learning from others, to build and strengthen friendships, to further develop and grow, to play within other disciplines, and to push the possibilities of my own work.

Contact me for commissions, collaborations, consultations, or just to say hi.