Artist Bio

Through his lens-based work, writing, and large-scale architectural works, Troels Steenholdt Heiredal (he/him/they) reassembles the world, enabling people to reflect on how they relate to it.

Working highly interdisciplinary, he can develop projects from idea, through concept, design, construction, and execution. Always with a keen sense for detail and tactility. His multifaceted background includes turning workshops into performances and a key-shop into a camera.

In 2019, Troels learned that he is Autistic. He has since been examining the differences between explaining and exploring disability, bringing focus to our different ways of perceiving the world. He is developing an Autistic Architectural Approach, enabling all people to understand their impact and rights to the city.

Troels has been an invited guest critic at Columbia GSAPP, Cornell University, RISD, The Cooper Union, and Tamkang University and helped found Arts, Letters, & Numbers. He has worked, exhibited, and lectured in the US, Argentina, Colombia, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, and Denmark, including at Kunsthal Charlottenborg and the Copenhagen Metro. He holds a Bsc in Architectural Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and a Masters in Architecture from Aarhus School of Architecture.

Troels was born and raised in Toftlund (b. 1984), a Danish village of 3000, and is currently living in Taipei, Taiwan.

Artist Statement

I am examining the differences between explaining and exploring disability.

I am interested in how we build knowledge from the objects and spaces we are surrounded by daily. My work starts with spatial relations, the surrounds, the cities, the voices. How do we relate and (make) sense spatially; how do we reconstruct the world, build inner geographies that we navigate for ourselves in the sense making, both of finding our way through a city but also finding our selves; how do we insert our selves within the world, make space for us? These are at the heart of my questions.

And then learning I'm Autistic has become an important opening for me within these questions. I have often felt like an observer; trying to decode the world around me and the meaning of its objects. This has led me to use found matter that I sculpt into multi-layered experiences, defying a clear meaning, but rather asking questions about that which we take for granted. Seeing how looking at the world from different perspectives opens new possibilities of being for more people.

When we take in the world, we impose personal layers onto it, in an effort to make sense of it. This, in effect, worldbuilds within us, our own personal inner geographies that we constantly navigate and simultaneously alter when making up our minds. I want to explore this landscape, especially to find and challenge my own inherent biases hidden within it, and use it to open conversation and build space for others to address theirs.

List of Publications

Essays / CNF
(from) Adaptive Reuse (to) Adaptive Architecture | Symposium, Carleton University CAN [ forthcoming ]
Critique of Taipei Performing Arts Center | CICA Int’l Committee of Architectural Critics [ forthcoming ]
Impressions of Pure Joy | Wordgathering [ forthcoming ]
Autistic Architectural Perception | arq: Architectural Research Quarterly
Autistic Architectural Approach | PLAT 13: Alchemy
Inner Geographies | on:site magazine

Interviews
Hunag Sheng-Yuan, Fieldoffice Architects Founder | Arkitekten [ forthcoming ]
Exploring Autistic Perception in Architecture, interview w/ Erin Manning | arq: Architectural Research Quarterly,

Photography
Invisible Nature | Notch Magazine

Reviews
Exhibition: Architecture in Context, Exhibition: Shifting Horizons: The Generation of Emancipatory Architecture in Taiwan | Mekong Review
Book: The Architecture of Disability by David Gissen | arq: Architectural Research Quarterly

CV

Build Projects
2022/23 Loft Interior, Oakland USA
2019/20 Loft Renovation, Aarhus DK
2020 Office Interior, Brooklyn USA
2014 Multiple Exposure in Real Time, FRONT art space, New York City USA
2014 North Bench /// South Bench, Roskilde DK
2012 + 2013 Little Big Thing, Aarhus, DK
2012 ILOVIT theater, Copenhagen Art Festival, Copenhagen DK
2011+ 2012 + 2013 Waves at Shore Café, Roskilde DK
2010 sittingHIDDENsitting, Aarhus DK
2010 + 2011 Plastic Heart, Plastic Lung [Collaboration, WHOISIN], Norberg S

Solo Exhibitions
2022 How Do We Project,| [Two Person] The Clemente, New York City USA
2020 Looking Into Looking, In The Gallery, Copenhagen DK
2015 Invisible Aarhus, Galleri Grundstof, Aarhus DK
2015 Through Multiple Lenses, Leth & Gori, Copenhagen DK
2015 Toftlund by Troels at The Art Society of Toftlund, Toftlund DK

Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 Kaohsiung International Container Festival, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung TW
2025 Ostrale Biennale Never Gray, Dresden GER
2022 Corrupted Archive, online, Cagliari, ITA
2017 Landscape | Cityscape, Galleri Grundstof, Aarhus DK
2016 Portrait of a Landscape, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, New York City USA
2016 Artist Co-op III, Jamaica Center for the Arts and Learning, New York City USA
2013 Spring Exhibition, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen DK
2012 Art Underground, Forum Metro Station, Copenhagen DK
2011 Berlin White Lines [WHOISIN art collective], HBC, Berlin D

Artist Talks / Workshops
2021 Found Poetry Talk + Workshop, Creative Mornings Virtual Field Trip, online.
2018 Moderator, Creative Salon, New York City, USA
2018 Museo Sívori, Buenos Aires ARG
2016 + 2017 + 2018 Found Poetry Talk + Workshop, Arts Letters & Numbers, Averil Park, NY USA
2016 Cornell University, Ithaca NY USA
2016 Atelier ‘89, Oranjestad Aruba
2013 Parsons The New School of Design, New York City USA
2013 La Haldaria Gallery, Medellín COL
2012 Youth Laboratorium for Art, The Danish National Gallery, Copenhagen DK

Grants/Awards & Mentions/Residencies
2025 Foreign Correspondent for Arkitekten, Copenhagen DK
2020 Exhibition Grant, Dreyers Foundation DK
2016 Travel Grant for Research trip to Mexico, Dreyers Foundation DK + Danish Arts DK
2015 Exhibition Grant for Through Multiple Lenses, Dreyers Foundation DK
2014 Workshop for senior students at Escula Desiño, Altos de Chavón Dom. Rep.
2014 Fellow of Arts Letters & Numbers, Averill Park NY USA
2013 Casa de Campo, residency, Architectural Advisor to the director, Medellín COL
2013 + 2014 Travel Grant, Danish Arts DK
2011 KAB Scholarship given to outstanding students at Aarhus School of Architecture, Aarhus DK
2010 toleraCITY - 2nd prize Open Film Competition Dense Living [Collaboration w. Thomas Lillevang] DK

Consultant
2025 Design and Planning for Nobody’s Pawn | We Are…, Matsu Biennale, TW

Employment
2017 – 2024 Bone / Levine Architects, New York City USA
2015 – 2017 SITU STUDIO, New York City USA
2014 + 2012 + 2009 Elkiær + Ebbeskov Architects, Copenhagen DK
2014 + 2009 Spektrum Architects, Copenhagen DK
2007 NL Architects, Amsterdam NL

Education
2012 Master of Arts in Architecture, Aarhus School of Architecture, Aarhus, DK
2009 Bsc Architectural Engineering, The Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, DK