Imagination in a time of ashes. Posthuman figurations in the works of Adriana Miranda, Claudia Pérez de Sanctis and Paula Gaetano Adi

Abstract

Western thought, rooted in humanism and anthropocentrism, has positioned the European man at the center of the universe, fostering the idea of superiority that justifies domination and colonization. This paradigm, evident from ancient times to the Modern Era with Cartesian dualism, has led to the modern subject's control over everything diverging from itself. This perspective has brought us to the current climate crisis, referred to as the Anthropocene and Capitalocene.

In this article, art is conceived as an aesthetic-critical device that shapes alternative knowledge-making schemes, expanding the realm of the imaginable and, consequently, the possible. Works by Adriana Miranda, Claudia Pérez de Sanctis, and Paula Gaetano Adi are explored as imaginative practices that, through depictions of local canine breeds, ent(r)es grafts, and robots, intervene in dominant truth regimes, paving the way for more inhabitable worlds. Imagination is thus seen as a situated practice that acts on reality, transforming society and creating new fictions that contribute to the construction of more desirable futures.