Samantha McCulloch

Samantha McCulloch is a writer based in Johannesburg.  The first draft of her novella, Lagoon, won the inaugural First Drafts series and was published by Kunstverein in Summer 2022.

She is currently embarking on a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of the Western Cape. Over the part years she studied Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, investigating formations of subjectivity, possession and property in South Africa during the long nineteenth century, with particular attention to instances of self-making in the Xhosa cattle-killing movement, the Bleek and Lloyd archives and the writings of Olive Schreiner.

Samantha McCulloch's previous work drew upon ficto-critical techniques to critique whiteness and solipsism in J. M. Coetzee’s Boyhood (1997) and Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967). She has also published articles on contemporary art and curatorship in Third Text and Museum Management and Curatorship.

Learn more about Samantha McCulloch’s written MA thesis (DAI, 2019): Of Writing and Possession: White Writing and its Illegitimate Inheritance

Learn more about Samantha McCulloch’s 20 minute presentation The Owl House for "AEROPONIC ACTS  - growing roots in air" DAI's 3 day performace- lectures marathon, May 2019 at Silent Green in Berlin.

Follow Samantha's "Life after DAI" via her website