This article responds to the large scale sculptural work by eco-political artist Michele Beevors, whose work has recently been extensively exhibited in New Zealand, Australia, and Austria. She brings her audience close to the tragedies of eco-extinction and the brutalities of human interaction with our vulnerable animal co-species. The article considers her work through four frames: 1. Violence: Dissection and Restitution; 2. Death: Specimen and Requiem; 3. Grief: Solastalgia and Entanglement; and 4. Labour: Materiality and Companionship. Through these four frames, the artist’s exploration of human relationships with non-human forms of life is highlighted as based in decolonial, feminist and activist values. The text includes memories and reflections from the author’s life where relevant to the themes presented by the artist.

Crossing art and science, this text explores topographically the category of Land-Sea, both in the field, during collection phases, and from a more analytical point of view. To this end, it draws on collective surveys carried out between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, focusing in particular on the question of the winter season. This article thus engages in a methodological and analytical dialogue between different complementary approaches, with the aim of deciphering, in depth, territorial socio-ecosystemic complexities, between mutations and perpetuations.

This study delves into the nuanced relationship between humans and trees, focusing on Sumana Roy’s Out of Syllabus (2019). Using a multidisciplinary approach drawing from anthropology and philosophy, it aims to uncover the dynamic role of trees in the human experience in India. Positioned within a postcolonial perspective aligned with the decolonial turn, the analysis emphasises trees’ active agency, challenging their traditional portrayal as passive elements. Informed by scholars like Jones and Oppermann, it delves into the nuanced interplay between human and arboreal existence, enhancing our understanding of their symbiotic relationship.

Although in postcolonial ecocritical literature the agency of animals finds full recognition, representations of insects are so rare that curiosity arises about their untapped ecocritical meaning. Interestingly, in Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift, a chorus of mosquitoes takes centre stage. In the first section of this paper, I argue that Serpell’s novel recontextualises classical references, placing them between adaptation to the conventions of epic poems and innovation. In the second section, the ecocritical meanings of the chorus of mosquitoes are analysed and framed in relation to the concepts of ‘simulacrum’ and post nature.

The concept of the aquapelago was introduced into Island Studies in 2012 to identify the close integration of aquatic and terrestrial realms that can arise from human livelihood activities conducted within them. While many aspects of aquapelagos have subsequently been described and analysed, little attention has been extended to their interface with aerial and, particularly, avian domains. This article attempts to redress this through a consideration of human livelihood activities involving seabirds in St Kilda, an isolated group of islands to the west of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. Using the concept of the aquapelago as a starting point, the article considers various aspects of human-avian relations occurring on St Kilda, and UNESCO’s subsequent designation of the islands as a World Heritage site and intersperses this with the author’s personal experiences of and affective engagements with the islands. In particular, the latter part of the article develops the author’s field notes from a visit in Summer 2022 into a consideration of the limits of isolation occasioned by the presence of the H5N1 strain of HPAIV (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus) on St Kilda at that time. The viral colonisation of the bird colonies undermined any sense of St Kilda and similar remote locations being safely isolated refugia and, indeed, signalled a particularly precarious moment of Anthropocene connectivity between mainlands and islands.

The essay discusses, from an Indigenous perspective, the French nuclear weapon tests in the southern Pacific islands. It presents a vivid scenario of the detrimental effects and social inequalities produced by the dynamic of ‘industrialization without industry’ brought about by militarisation and extraction.

The following article discusses Paradise Camp by Samoan-Japanese artist Yuki Kihara, curated by Professor Natalie King which is on exhibition at The Powerhouse, Sydney, Australia throughout 2023. Authors delve into the significance of Paradise Camp as a vital and timely act of truth-telling. They highlight Kihara’s concept and realisation of what she has coined the Vārchive as a means to approaching First Nations archival materials. They explore the Vārchive as both artwork and archival practice which could catalyse a transformative shift within the heritage sector highlighting the imperative for Indigenous interventions within colonial collections. Reflecting on the Vārchive emphasises the need to redefine heritage, to encompass and consider Indigenous communities and landscapes as animate archives and memory holders which are increasingly threatened by climate change.