How do you imagine existence after you have taken your last breath?

World cultures have speculated about the afterlife since humans first conceived of death. However, what comes after was, and remains unfathomable, inscrutable, and unknowable. Despite the proliferation of technologies capable of disclosing the secrets of the universe, death still lies beyond the grasp of human knowledge and experience. Nonetheless, those who have depicted the earthly and celestial realms of the dead throughout history, provide compelling evidence that this perennial quandary fits securely within the zone of human imagining. This publication presents eight original artworks that envision the hereafter.

This special issue of the CSPA Quarterly takes the form of an archive, which is to say it is an assemblage of past contributions that continue to feel particularly resonant. It is also an index of artistic and academic ideas, intended to create a resource with an expanded view of practice, noting artistic influences while leaving space to dream new possibilities. This document consists of reprinted articles and artworks from issues since the inception of the CSPA Quarterly, as well as reflective texts and a series of references in bibliographic form.

In a western world where religious “rebirth” is being used to justify the elimination of human rights, the idea of starting anew can be exhausting and suspect. Compost, as a process, reminds us that cycles are inherent in cultures, economies and bodies as well as ecologies. The artists in this issue engage with ideas of compost in ways that are important and enlivening, in Lead Editor Moe Beitiks’ final issue for the Quarterly.

This issue explores borders as ‘a unique and specific place which is instrumental to the definition of globalization, integration, territorialization and reterritorialization’ (Nicol and Minghi 2005: 687) alongside the ecologies of landscape and community. It seeks to expand on geographies of (im)mobility and socio-spatiality through the reflections, processes and visions of artistic and community work that explore earth’s palimpsestic layers of those who have walked, planted, played, fought and fled.

Patricia Watts, founder and curator of ecoartspace, is editor of this issue, which includes essays on the mining of cobalt by Mary Mattingly and sculptural applications in wildlife rehabilitation by Rachel Frank, as well as a Post Anthropocentric art provocation by Linda Weintraub featuring the works of Amy Youngs, Dana Hemes, and Leah Wilson. Also included is an interview/conversation with Raphael Bengay and feature spreads of works by Dana Fritz, Bebonkwe / Jude Norris, and Lily Simonson with poet Katy Gurin.

How can we approach the non-human with authenticity? Resisting stereotype and symbolic simplification, can we instead move between the imperfect modalities available to us: the empirical gaze, new anthropomorphism, the intuitive, the speculative, poetic slippage, radical empathy? With multiple precipices occluding once familiar ground beneath our feet, we may find this threshold in an unexpected direction—and instead of stepping outwards, sink into a space below executive consciousness where we may gain entry to a more-than-human world by giving in to being something less than fully in control.

We live in times that are impure — confusing and compromised — and this requires contingent thinking and acting. What happens when artists get involved in complex, difficult issues, where different parties are involved and there might not be such a clear-cut right and wrong? Or alternatively, when the costs of ambivalence may be impossibly high? This issue is framed around both/and: the role of complicity in social-ecological systems and how to maintain a contingent – yet effective – position as an artist and ecological participant. Guest edited by Perdita Phillips.