My practice-led Ph.D., Species of Accumulation and the Necromass of Natural History, at the Centre for Research Architecture (Centre for Research Architecture, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London), investigates how curatorial and artistic methodologies can intervene in the entangled legacies of coloniality, ecological violence, and knowledge production. Rooted in over a decade of transdisciplinary work as Principal Co-Investigator and Co-Curator of the international exhibition-led research initiative Reassembling the Natural (since 2013), the thesis explores how collaborative practices can transform natural history collections into critical sites for ecological thought and institutional experimentation.
Bringing together major exhibitions, publications, and public programs, Reassembling the Natural forged new methods of critical engagement with the so-called “necromass” of natural history collections—repurposing these specimens as material vestiges to histories of extractivism, commodification, and extinction. This long-term initiative, co-developed with artists, scientists, activists, and curators across multiple continents, was instrumental in advancing the ecological turn in curatorial practice and pushing the boundaries of what a research-led exhibition can do.
Organized in five chapters, the dissertation investigates how natural history collections function as planetary architectures of accumulation, extending colonial gazes and economic logics into the present. Developing key concepts such as the ecocidal gaze, species of accumulation, and the nature of investment, the thesis links museum epistemologies to broader systems of monoculture, domination, and environmental injustice.
The dissertation unfolds in two conceptual and aesthetic halves. Chapters 1 and 2 examine botanical and zoological specimens collected in the nineteenth-century tropics, focusing respectively on oil palm and birds of paradise. Chapters 3 and 4 return to their sites of extraction in the twenty-first century to reflect on the enduring material and epistemic legacies in the archive and on the ground. This structure traces a conceptual arc shaped by my sustained engagement with the writings of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), co-discoverer of the theory of evolution and prolific naturalist-collector in present-day Indonesia. Following in his wake, Reassembling the Natural has traveled to numerous collections worldwide to probe the imperial construction of “nature” through entangled regimes of difference, development, and entitlement. Chapter 5 offers a tentative conclusion by proposing an alternative evolutionary lens through the theories of symbiogenesis developed by microbiologist Lynn Margulis (1938–2011). Grounded in the Reassembling the Natural exhibition ponds among ponds, this chapter reimagines the natural history museum as a habitat interface—a space for the sensitive re-assembly of natural futures grounded in kinship, reciprocity, and ecological repair.
The dissertation is deeply embedded in my curatorial and editorial practice and draws from decolonial, ecofeminist, and posthumanist theory, extinction and museum studies, and political economy. Ultimately, it argues for the necessity of transdisciplinary, practice-led research to transform inherited colonial necromass into generative infrastructures for planetary futures.
Keywords: Environmental humanities; Postcolonial ecologies; Decolonial museum praxis; Environmental justice; Decolonizing nature; Critical natural history; Necroaesthetics; Ecofeminism; Ecopoetics; Ecological collapse; Natureculture; Anthropocene; Plantationocene; Capitalist ruins; Alfred Russel Wallace; Lynn Margulis; Evolutionary theory; Symbiogenesis; Multispecies ethnography; Intersectional exhibition making; Experimental collaboration; Intersectionality in curatorial practice; Interdisciplinary writing; Narrative experimentation; Planetary architecture
Identification Number (DOI): doi.org/10.25602/GOLD.00037748
Departments, Centres, and Research Units: Centre for Research Architecture, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London