There's an animal in my belly

The workshop is about building relationships between human and non-human Others. Man in this context is treated as one of the species — not necessarily dominant and central, and the purpose of the meeting is to destabilize the sense of certainty about decisions made towards non-human beings, from the perspective characteristic of the Anthropocene.

In the course of the meeting we will focus on the figure of the rat, which in urban space is treated as invasive and harmful, and therefore subject to extermination and brutal killing according to human discretion regarding species classified as redundant. The rat in the city is biological garbage removed by the services as an element of “DDD - disinfection, disinsection, deratization”, thus in the hierarchy it does not occupy a higher position than bacteria. The rat is also a “political” figure used both in propaganda films of the Third Reich and in Stalinist rhetoric, where looking for an enemy, whether in the form of a Colorado potato beetle or a rat, became one of the practices. Nowadays, we strive to achieve green space in cities, but quite sterile, and if we agree to the presence of inhumans, it is rather those who are perceived by us as wanted - because they are needed. We also shirk responsibility by ignoring the relationship between rampant consumption, the growth of civilization serving our convenience, and the presence of non-human species that have become synanthropes, though they once were not. These examples illustrate superficially the human inconsistency in the treatment of Others and the construction of narratives convenient for a human-centric attitude.

During the workshop, we will address issues related to the so-called deratization and we will consider building a two-way relationship: ours with the rat and the rat with us. We will look for diverse, personal meanings that we can give to our potential coexistence. We will also make works in collage technique, which will be based on reflections arising as a result of discussion on the topic and the slogan “In my stomach lives an animal”, or perhaps - in my stomach lives a rat?

Hanna Mamzer, PhD, professor at UAM; psychologist, sociologist, forensic expert in the field of animal welfare. She works in the Department of Sociology of Civilizations at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the A. Mickiewicz University in Poznań. She is a Fellow of the Fulbright Foundation, Central European University, the British Council, and the Stefan Batory Foundation. She has given guest lectures in the United States, South America, numerous European countries and Asia. Since 2016, she has been a member of the Local Ethical Commission for Animal Experiments at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. From 2025 included in the List of experts involved in user controls in the field of animal experiments.

Sonia Rammer, PhD, professor of UAP; artist, psychologist, traveler. She works at the M. Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań (Faculty of Art Education and Curatorship), where she runs the Art in Intercultural Perspective Studio. Winner of the Creative Scholarship of the City of Poznań, beneficiary of the Polish Culture in the World program (Adam Mickiewicz Institute), author of exhibitions and texts in the field of creative psychology. The shape of her work is influenced by intercultural experiences (artistic residencies such as Marpha Foundation, Nepal; Baer Art Center, Iceland; Arctic Culture Lab, Greenland; ISLA, Chile), constant going outside the comfort zone and nurturing interspecies relationships. He works in a variety of media.