Sam
Spurr

Sam Spurr is an architectural theorist, critic and designer. Her current research on mining ideology and coal capitalism explores the possibilities of architecture to make legible the complex forces at play in the age of the Anthropocene. As part of this research, Sam Spurr explores feminist theorisations of care and collective political subjectivity, ecological systems and indigenous cosmologies in the Australian context. Over the past five years, her work has focussed on the agency of architecture and the need for disciplinary transformation in a rapidly changing world. Her PhD thesis, entitled Performative Architectures, completed in 2008, explored how strategies from performance can be imported into digital design processes. Sam Spurr has taught in architecture, design and fine art faculties since 2001.

In spring 2025, Sam Spurr will be working with Eduardo Kairuz on the project ‘Lithium Unearthed: Hope and Perils for a Green Future’. Spurr and Kairuz will take an innovative, creative practice-based approach in this project, spanning multiple disciplines, narratives and perspectives to unravel the entanglements around lithium extraction and consumption.

The DAAD Arts and Media program, the City of Potsdam and the Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (RIFS) have launched a new fellowship programme, the ‘Planetary Transitions: Potsdam Artist Residency’. The fellowship is open to artists from abroad or those who have only recently moved to Germany and will be realised at the RIFS. The fellows work on their projects on campus and are supported in networking with researchers at RIFS as well as cultural and scientific institutions in the greater Potsdam/Berlin area.