I am an architectural historian and urban scholar interested in the SURFACES OF CITIES as sites of political contention. I have been researching GRAFFITI AND STREET ART for more than ten years, and am currently developing a theoretical and methodological framework for investigating urban surfaces.
My principal areas of research and expertise are around PUBLIC CULTURES, URBAN VISUAL JUSTICE, and the visual, semiotic and legal dimensions of cities.
- Urban semiotics, geosemiotics, surface semiotics: written and visual communication in urban space and the role of visual culture in the development of urban identities; surface inscriptions and materialities; advertising, posters, CGIs.
- Legal geography and neoliberal urbanism: property regimes in cities, the privatisation of public space, architecture and the lawscape; urbanism and security; designing out crime; order and transgression; urban criminology; the creative city and cultural consumption.
- The right to the city and spatial justice: theories of space and spatial justice; post-Lefebvrian proposals for the right to the city in a global context; spatial commons and activism; public protests and cultures of dissent.
- Graffiti, street art and public art: the history of sanctioned and unsanctioned surface marking; vandalism and writing on walls; transgressive subcultures and their appropriations.
My first monograph, Urban surfaces, graffiti, and the right to the city, establishes a research field of SURFACE STUDIES, looking at how surfaces are inscribed, regulated, and valued, and how they articulate cultures of control and resistance in cities.
I am a Faculty of Arts Postdoc fellow in cities and urbanism at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Cities. I previously taught at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where I received my Architectural History PhD in 2018. My teaching includes subjects such as “Insurgent cities”, “Representations of cities”, “Surface city”, as well as survey courses on architectural history and the London built environment.
I am the Early Career Academics Convener at the Melbourne Centre for Cities and an Executive Member of the Australian EMCR SHAPE network (Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts for People and Environment ). I was a UCL Grand Challenges grantee and organiser of the international Graffiti Sessions conference in 2014, as well as a British Council fellow at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. I am the recipient of the 2020 Prosser award for outstanding work in visual methodologies, awarded by the International Visual Sociology Association, and I co-directed the IVSA annual conference in 2022.
Publications
Andron, S., Lata, L. (2024), “Images shape cities, but who decides which ones survive? It’s a matter of visual justice“, in The Conversation, 29 January 2024
Andron, S. (2023), Urban surfaces, graffiti, and the right to the city, London: Routledge.
Andron, S. (2019) “To Mend the Matter, to Cultivate Sympathy: On Vulnerable Walls and Expressive Surfaces”, in Informa Journal of the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture, no.12, 23-31.
Andron, S. (2019) “Enter the Surface-Interface: An Exploration of Urban Surfaces as Sites of Spatial Production and Regulation” In Urban Interfaces: Media, Art and Performance in Public Spaces, edited by Verhoeff, Nanna, Sigrid Merx, and Michiel de Lange. Leonardo Electronic Almanac 22, no. 4
Andron, S. (2019) “The Right to the City Is the Right to the Surface: A Case for a Surface Commons (in 8 Arguments, 34 Images and some Legal Provisions)”, in Brighenti, A.M. & Kärrholm, M. (eds), Urban Walls. Political and Cultural Meanings of Vertical Structures and Surfaces, London and New York: Routledge
Andron, S. (2018) “To Occupy, to Inscribe, to Thicken: Spatial Politics and the Right to the Surface”, in Brighenti, A. M. and Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A., “Surfaces and Materials”, Lo Squaderno special issue no 48
Andron, S. (2018) “Selling Streetness as Experience. The Role of Street Art Tours in Branding the Creative City”, in Sociological Review, Vol 66, Issue 5, pp. 1036 – 1057.
Andron, S. (2017) “Interviewing Walls: Towards a Method of Reading Hybrid Surface Inscriptions” in Avramidis, K. and Tsilimpounidi, M. (eds), Graffiti and Street Art: Reading, Writing and Representing the City, London: Routledge
Andron, S. (2017) “The Eton Graffiti”, exhibition catalogue essay for artist Liane Lang’s Old School exhibition at Eton College
Andron, S. (2016) “Paint. Buff. Shoot. Repeat. Re-photographing Graffiti in London”, in Campkin, B. and Duijzings, G. (eds), Engaged Urbanism. Cities and Methodologies, London: IB Tauris
Andron, S. (2015) “Framing Transgression. The Role of City Surface Structures in the Placement of Street Art”, in Kakunko, S. (ed), Framings, Berlin: Logos
Andron, S. (2015) “The City and the Virtual: The Use of Digital Technology in 3D Street Art”, written with Regner Ramos, in Fuggle, S. and Henri, T. (eds), Return to the Street, London: Pavement Books
Teaching
(2017 – 2023) Lecturer (Teaching), Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London
Representations of Cities, MA Architectural History
Insurgent cities, MArch Year 4
Surface city, BSc Architecture Year 3
Architectural representations, BSc Architecture Year 2
History and theory of engineering and architecture, MEng Year 1
Past appointments:
(2018–21) Senior Lecturer, Department of Architecture, Ravensbourne University London
(2015–20) Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering, University of East London
(12/2020) Course Leader, CEPT University Winter School, Ahmedabad, India
(07/2018) Course Leader, Royal Academy of Arts London
(2015-18) Postgraduate Teaching Assistant, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
(2015-17) Teaching Assistant, History of London Architecture, School of History, Queen Mary University of London
(2017) Guest Lecturer, Summer School in Urban Studies, London School of Economics
(2016-17) Associate Lecturer, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Education
(2011-18) PhD Architectural History and Theory, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London
“Graffiti, street art and the right to the surface: for a semiotic, cultural and legal approach to urban surfaces and inscriptions”, supervised by Prof Iain Borden and Prof Ben Campkin.
(2010-11) MA Visual Culture, Faculty of Art & Design, Manchester Metropolitan University
(2008-10) MA Theatre, Media and Performance Studies, Faculty of Theatre & Television, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj Napoca, Romania
(2005-08) BA Comparative Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Babes-Bolyai University
Selected talks
2023: “Surface studies: a research agenda” at the International Sociological Association World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne
2021: “Interviewing walls? Lessons and methods from urban surfaces” at MA Architectural History Symposium, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
2020: “Between immunity and community: the right to the Covid city”, November 2020, Technical University of Crete, Greece
2019: “Boundary, occupation, conflict: a conceptual framework for urban surfaces as spatial commons” at the City as a Commons conference, September 2019, Pavia, Italy
2019: “Wall stories, mended matter and layered politics: the challenges of researching urban surfaces” at the Nuart Street Art conference, April 2019, Aberdeen, Scotland
2019: “Listen to the Surface, Interview the Wall” at the Westminster Law and Theory Lab
2018: “This Way to San Marco: A Semiotic Examination of Vernacular Signage in Venice” at CityStreet3, Beirut, Lebanon
2018: “An Examination of City Surfaces as Repositories of Urban Cultural Production” at UNESCO-ORBICOM conference on “Communication, City and Public Space”, Lima, Peru
2018: “The Right to the City Is the Right to the Surface: A Legal and Material Investigation of Urban Surfaces and Property Rights”, in the Law and Land Use session at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, New Orleans
2018: “Urban Walls and Spatial Justice” at the Socially Just Planning Seminar Series, Bartlett School of Planning
2017: “Urban Mythology and Mundane Disaster: Death in Pop Art from Warhol to Basquiat” at the Royal Academy of the Arts, part of the “Vogue and Vanitas of Mortality” art history course
2017: “Graffiti, Memory and the City” at The London Festival of Architecture
2017: Panel speaker Paris Urban Art Fair
2016: “100 Days of Leake Street: A Study of Repeat Photography as a Graffiti Research Method” at “Visualising the Street” Conference, ASCA Cities, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2015: “Remove, Clean, Eradicate: A Critical Reading of UK Graffiti Policy” at the Kent Critical Law Society Annual Conference, University of Kent
2014: “Show and Tell: The Role of Walking Tours in Configuring London’s Street Art Scene” at Competing Urbanisms workshop, University of Melbourne, Australia
2013: Paper at the PhD Forum, Global Cities and Theories of Interruption Workshop, Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University
2013: “Taking Place: New Geographical Approaches to the Site-Specificity of Street Art” at Urban Popcultures conference, Prague, Czech Republic
SABINA ANDRON 