The workshop focuses on building relationships between human and non-human Others. In this context, the human is treated as but one of the multiple species, not necessarily as the dominant or central one. The aim of the meeting is to destabilise the sense of certainty surrounding decisions made with regard to non-human beings from a perspective characteristic of the Anthropocene.
During the meeting, we will focus on the figure of the rat; in urban space it is regarded as invasive and harmful and is therefore subjected to extermination and brutal killing in accordance with human discretion as to which species are deemed superfluous. In the city, the rat is biological waste removed by municipal services as part of “DDD – disinfection, disinfestation and de-vermination” policy; it therefore occupies no higher position in the hierarchy than bacteria. Furthermore, the rat is a “political” figure used both in propaganda films of the Third Reich and in Stalinist rhetoric; in both, a search for an enemy, whether in the form of the Colorado potato beetle or the rat, became one of the established practices. Today, we seek to create green spaces in cities that are nevertheless relatively sterile, and if we accept the presence of non-human beings, they tend to be those we regard as desirable on account of their being useful. We evade responsibility by ignoring the relationship between rampant consumption, the expansion of a civilisation of comfort, and the presence of non-human species that have become synanthropic, although they were not so in the past. The above examples offer a glimpse into human inconsistency in the treatment of Others and of the construction of narratives convenient to an anthropocentric stance.
During the workshop, we will address issues related to so-called vermin control and reflect on the reciprocal construction of relationships: ours with the rat and the rat’s with us. We will explore the diverse personal meanings that we may attribute to our potential coexistence. We will also produce collages based on reflections arising from the discussion of the subject and the prompt “An animal lives in my belly”, or perhaps – a rat lives in my belly?
Hanna Mamzer, professor of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań; psychologist, sociologist, a court animal welfare expert. She works at the Department of Sociology of Civilisation at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. She has held scholarships from e.g. the Fulbright Foundation, Central European University, the British Council, and the Stefan Batory Foundation. She has had guest lectures in the US, South America, many European countries, and Asia. Since 2016, a member of the Local Ethical Committee for Animal Experimentation operating under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. In 2025 included on the list of experts involved in inspections of users conducting animal experiments.
Sonia Rammer, professor of the University of the Arts, Poznan; artist, psychologist, and traveller. An academic at the M. Abakanowicz University of the Arts, Poznan (Faculty of Art Education and Curatorship), where she leads the Art Studio in the Intercultural Perspective. Laureate of the Creative Scholarship of the City of Poznań, beneficiary of the Polish Culture Worldwide program (Adam Mickiewicz Institute), author of exhibitions and texts on the psychology of the arts. Her oeuvre is impacted by intercultural experience (artistic residencies, e.g. Marpha Foundation, Nepal; Baer Art Center, Islandia; Arctic Culture Lab, Greenland; ISLA, Chile), continuous departure from the comfort zone, and care for inter-species relations. She employs a variety of media.
