Samantha Robinson

Working within Environmental-Humanities, my research focuses on ‘pests’ in the urban, specifically; other-than-humans who are seen as ‘invaders’. When we encounter one of these ‘others’ - such as rats, city birds, foxes etc - we are also abjectly faced with our entanglement with them, as it is us who have drawn, smuggled and planted these other-than-humans along beside us. However, the urban is a place of relentless encroachments and transformations - a turbulent flux of construction and destruction – and so our persistent unstable existence of action and reaction works, neither benevolently nor malevolently, to conceal the human trace in these entanglements. Therefore, when we encounter them, these ‘pests’ become relegated to ‘living dead’ in Necropolitical terms; those who exist poised between life and destruction by means of humankind’s own existence. 

In my work, site-specific and psychogeographic methodologies such as printworks, artistic documentation, prose and performative work, allow voices to emerge for these ‘others’, unravelling a new narrative in which we are observed, studied and critiqued. These developing ephemeral and unorthodox dialogues can help to radically amend our perception and behaviour towards the ‘weird, abject, and horrific’ presence of the other-than-human, whilst also allowing for discourse to emerge relating to class, race, discrimination, human ‘aliens’, capitalism, and indeterminacy. 

Names of Supervisors:  

• Natasha Lushetich
• Heather Yeung