Abstract

What Can Trans Do?

Trans Terms for Eco-criticism and Decoloniality in Art’s Histories

Editors: Jane Chin Davidson, Rachael Grew, Marsha Meskimmon, and Alpesh Kantilal Patel

Western-centric concepts of ‘the human’ and ‘the world’ were forged through five centuries of colonial conquest, underpinned by ruthless anthropocentricism and oppressive regimes of race, gender and sexuality. The social, economic and ecological injustices instituted by these regimes have not abated; we live in ongoing conditions of structural inequality and violence that make manifest the iniquitous bio- and geopolitical legacies of imperial expansion and extractive global capitalism.

As a different way of doing art’s histories, this collaborative Special Issue seeks to explore the use of trans terms (in their widest sense) as methodological tools for addressing the question: what is the nexus for the anti- and decolonial, race-critical, queer, and ecofeminist ideals of contemporary artists?  The longer essays and shorter roundtables for this volume exemplify the ways in which art’s histories and critical practices can be transdisciplinary, entangling the sciences – earth and biological sciences, as well as social and political sciences –  to engage in an expansive use of trans.

Bringing together authors whose approach is to transgress heteronormative traditions, they offer transformative ecologies of knowledge around human and nonhuman relationships with/in the world. From a “spine” of four essays, we demonstrate the transversal and transformative significance of planetary feminisms in art’s histories and practices. This discourse is not ‘post-’ but trans; it follows in the wake of contact, recognizing that we cannot go back or beyond, only ‘stay with the trouble’ (Donna Haraway), creating multi-directional crossings and connections in many and vibrant worlds. To illustrate this project, the artist pages feature the work of three artists: Tsohil Bhatia, Leora Farber-Blackbeard, and Libby Heaney.