Interlude: Afterdeath

The interlude, “Afterdeath,” serves as a transition from the afterlife discussed in the previous chapters to the afterdeath analyzed in the last chapter. It argues that, as an operation of the state, haunting renders the specter familiar, familial, and intimate. This operation limits the possibility of testing out visual and political languages and forms of resistance that could lead to new political futures and figures. With that argument in mind, the interlude asks: What to do with the specter? The answer, it proposes, is a reckoning that creates spaces of afterdeath that reboot the imagination and try out material and affective engagements with the past that do not reproduce the stubborn yearning for salvific male heroes. The interlude concludes that contemporary Venezuelan performance art has successfully created those spaces, and highlights the work of Venezuelan artist Deborah Castillo as an example worth exploring in depth in the book’s last chapter.