Urban researcher, educator, and creative practitioner working on public images and visual cultures in cities.
Currently researching visual governance in the city, with a critical focus on the Australian graffiti removal industry. Other ongoing work includes street posters and urban surface maintenance in Melbourne, Australia; and urban visual heritage in Kampala, Uganda.
Author of “Urban surfaces, graffiti, and the right to the city” (Routledge 2024).
ARC DECRA Research Fellow in Urban Studies in the Faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning, University of Melbourne.
Co-leader of the Social and Visual Justice in the City research cluster at the Melbourne Centre for Cities.
Co-founder of the international Urban Surfaces Research Network.
ABC Top5 Humanities winner 2024, with media appearances on ABC Radio National, A is for Architecture, and New Books Network. Expert commentator for “Banksy and the Stolen Girl” documentary (2023).
Chair of the Australasian Early Career Urban Research Network (AECURN).
Co-editor of Visual Studies journal.
Researches, writes, and supervises on:
- Urban surfaces and urban semiotics.
- Graffiti, street art, and public art.
- Critical approaches to graffiti management and urban maintenance.
- Policy and history of outdoor advertising, billboards, street posters.
- Visual and material ethnographies and embodied methods of urban research.
- Visual, atmospheric, and multi-sensory approaches to urban culture and urban design.
- Public writing, signage, and urban communication.
- Everyday urban experiences, streets and public space. Vandalism, disorder, and dissent.
- Spatial justice, visual justice, and the right to the city.
sabina.andron@unimelb.edu.au
