Today's intertwined ecological and political disasters create threatening future scenarios that emphasise the fear of loss. The limits of our natural resources and the impasses created by human-centric thinking have begun to emerge as future visions that are akin to a final act, which can be reflected in artistic research.

 

For philosopher and feminist theoretician Rosi Braidotti, this ending is culminated by Western culture's concept of humanity, or the Human. In her view, the Posthuman does not represent a crisis, but a wider historical transition: [f]ull of risks, it also affords huge opportunities for both humans and non-human agents, as well as for the Humanities, to reinvent themselves (Braidotti 2024). How we interpret the end of times produces and shapes not only our views of the present but also of the past, and enables the retelling and re-presentation of the present and past in familiar and alternative ways.

 

The anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2015) has written about new forms of life that have sprung from the ruins of capitalism. The Mushroom at the End of the World is a comforting reminder that endings also mean change. While an ending represents unreachable absence, change is concrete presence. Even when something that seemed enduring is relegated into the past, one can still find small pockets that provide opportunities for living and acting in meaningful ways, towards change and hope. As a result, endings also represent continuity, and are a vital part of life: if nothing never ends, new things, connections, organisms, and mycelia can never emerge.

 

February 2025 saw the opening of the Apocalypse. Hier et demain exhibition at the National Library of France in Paris. The exhibition features 300 works of art that represent the enduring fascination that artists have with the end of the world, from the 800s to the present day. Much like other works of contemporary art, this collection depicts future threats related to climate change and nature. In other words, endings and the end times may represent the context of the works, or be explicitly present in them.

 

Human emotions are also at the core of how ending-related times are envisioned. When an ending is considered to represent an unreachable absence, it may stoke fear or even terror, disbelief, despair, sadness, hatred, melancholy, and nostalgia. The threatening scenarios related to endings can also induce positive feelings, such as curiosity, hope, or empathy towards other species. Other emotions, such as eco-anxiety, can also inspire activism against structures that restrict change.

 

Endings and the end times are united by questions that challenge human-centric thinking, look for opportunities for change, and seek alternatives to capitalism. Apocalyptic times and history refer to ways of interpreting and presenting history, the world, and reality where the focus is on end-time perspectives and various types of disasters. Our thematic issue also invites artist-researchers to contribute interpretations in which the end times, history, the present, and the future are explored through visions, utopias, and hope. Disasters and hope are not mutually exclusive concepts. The ambivalent nature of endings – the simultaneous necessity for end and change, instability and inevitability – is an essential aspect of the end times.

 

• How are endings and the end times reflected in present or historical times? 
• What exactly will end, and what will it feel, sound, or look like? 
• What key concepts of endings can be outlined in artistic research? 
• How can artistic research react or respond to or comment on endings and the end times?
• In what ways can endings and the end times inspire artistic research, activities, or activism?