Research Institute for
Sustainability | at GFZ

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Samantha Jane Spurr

Senior Fellow

E-Mail

samantha [dot] jane [dot] spurr [at] rifs-potsdam [dot] de

Dr Sam Spurr is an architectural theorist, academic and artist. Her current research on Mining Ideology and Coal Capitalism, examines the agency of architecture to make legible the complex forces at play in the age of the Anthropocene. Through this research Sam is exploring theories of care and collective political subjectivity, ecological systems and Indigenous cosmologies in the Australian context of Country. Sam currently works with community partners in the Upper Hunter Valley Australia to support the regional transformation from coal to alternative energy sources. With Dr Eduardo Kairuz she is a founding member of the Global Extraction Observatory (GEO), a research collective examining the effects of resource extraction through creative practice, scholarship, and engagement. They have produced award winning exhibitions of their work and presented their practice internationally. Sam is currently an Associate Professor for Architecture at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

*Future Sites: Imaging a New Hunter Valley, exhibition and event, Donald Horne Building, Muswellbrook, March 2024  

  • 'Architecture for Complexity: Speculative design as an engagement in co-designing post mining future in the Hunter Valley' with Carrasco, S, in Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Environment and Communication special issue, Sustainability MDPI , 2024   *'Sandscapes', GEO creative project, Copenhagen Architecture Festival, Copenhagen 2024  
  • ' Fossil Fables', Global Extraction Observatory, solo exhibition curated with Kate Goodwin, Tin Sheds Gallery May-July 2023
  • 'Activism: Architecture and the Community', in MMXX Two Decades of Architecture in Australia, Thames Hudson, 2020  
  • 'OPEN-CUT (DATA) MINING: Multi-scalar complexity and critical spatial practices', with Kairuz E, in Critical Practices in Architecture: the Unexamined, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne,UK, 2020 
  
  • 'A Spatial Conversation Machine', invited practitioner to WORKAROUND - Women Design Action, Episode 13, RMIT Design Hub, 2018
  • 'Curating Architecture' with Burns D, in The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design edited by Chris Brisbin and Myra Thiessen, Routledge, UK, 2018 *'How Soon is Now', Co-Director, Australian Institute of Architects National Conference, Adelaide, 2016
  • 'New Directions in Film-Architecture', Co-Director, Newcastle University, UTS and UNSW, Newcastle, 2016
  • 'Weather Patterns - Where Forces Meet' with Erin Manning and Andrew Goodman. Rubicon Gallery, Melbourne Australia September 2015
  • 'Architecture of the Aftermath', with Lahoud A, book chapter in Performing Visions and Revisions: Performance, Memory, Trauma ed. Tresize.B, Museum Tusculanum Press, Denmark, 2013  
  • 'Past Futures, Present, Futures: 100 Re-enactments', with collective N, Storefront Gallery for Art and Architecture, NYC, 2012
  • 'Networks of Surrender', with collective N, The Gwangju Design Biennale, Korea, 2011
  • 'How To Be a Good Witness', with collective N, Australian Architecture Representation, Prague Quadrennial, Prague, 2011
  • 'Seam Symposium 2009: Dance, Film, Architecture', Co-Creative Director, Customs House, Circular Quay, Frasers Studios, Chippendale and Critical Path, Sydney, 2009  

  • CRITICAL SPATIAL PRACTICE
  • EXTRACTIVE LANDSCAPES
  • SPATIAL POLITICS
  • JUST ENERGY TRANSITION
  • INDIGENOUS COSMOLOGIES
  • ECOFEMINIST PHILOSOPHIES

Publications prior to joining the RIFS

  • 'Architecture for Complexity: Speculative design as an engagement in co-designing post mining future in the Hunter Valley' with Carrasco, S, in Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Environment and Communication special issue, ed. Rivkin W, Sustainability MDPI, 2024
  • 'Fossil Fables', Global Extraction Observatory, solo exhibition, Tin Sheds Gallery, 2023

  • 'Solidarities for a Damaged Planet', Nature Festival, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 12 October 2024
  • 'Opportunities for Growth and Development in a Post-Coal Future', UDIA City Lab23: Cities within Cities Summit, Sydney, 24 August, 2023
  • 'Regimes of Care: Rethinking the Architecture Design Studio', with NewberryDupe.D in Commoning (in) Architectural Pedagogy, Situated Ecologies of Care, 20th AHRA International Conference, Speaker, 2023
  • 'Dirt and Desertification in Australia's Extractive Landscapes: From Pit to Plain', with Newberry-Dupe.D in Dirty Pedagogies: Caring for a Polluted World, Situated Ecologies of Care, 20th AHRA International Conference, Speaker, 2023
  • 'Side-Effects: Lithium Unearthed', (GEO), M Pavilion, Melbourne, 4 April 2022
  • 'Conflicts, Materials, Lithium', GEO, invited keynote at Conversations with Extractivism, Monash University, 15-16th July 2022
  • 'Filling the Void: Transforming disciplines through Indiginous thinking' with Barry Williams, Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Summit 2022, Sunshine Coast, 31 May, 2022
  • 'Minefields', GEO performative lecture, Royal College of Arts, UK, 2016

  • Gold Medal, Good Design Award for 'Fossil Fables', 2024