Going Feral: Speculative Approaches to Animism in the Arts

This edited volume presents critical analyses of animism in the arts with a focus on the boundary practices of going feral. Reconsidering the question posed by Cecilia Alemani, Venice Biennale 2022 curator, authors explore ‘what would life look like without us?’, in a world activated by things and a post-humanist animism. These speculative discussions are developed in this volume, in which we consider how the process and practices of going feral might materialise through and across creative investigations. Going feral is a provocative call to untame, queer and radicalize feminist thought and practice, producing more-than-human, multispecies entanglements, and processes of dynamic resistance. The chapters critically analyse processes of going feral in artworks and art practices ranging from fine art, art history and performance to architecture, video games and poetry. They consider how going feral allows audiences to form meaningful relationships with spoiled landscapes, develop human and non-human communities, and to reimagine the domestic and the everyday through the prism of new animism. The creative practices discussed are geographically diverse, including examples from South Africa, Brazil, Ukraine, South Korea, Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe and North America. Through these wide-ranging approaches and case studies, the book asks, what are potential futures materialised through artworks that rethink the present as a world populated by things, a place where the sensibility of materials becomes carriers of agency? This edited volume argues that animism and ferality are vital tools for artists and creative professionals to describe and critique the increasing inequalities and continuous states of emergency that characterise late-stage capitalism. The concept of going feral is a critical framework to frame contemporary issues such as environmentalism, waste and discard studies, and speculate ways of decentring anthropomorphism.