Posthuman COV-llaboration: Enfleshing Encounters of Connectedness Through Imaging Memory

Abstract

Caught up in the “COVID moment and distancing-isolation,” the authors came together through a Collective Memory Work initiative to inquire into what solidarity during the COVID moment meant to each of them and collectively assemble understandings about this phenomenon. Critical relationships, methods, and more-than-human relationalities are shared in this article that combined to enliven the collaboration. Grounded in Collective Memory Work and widened by arts-based approaches, the academics reflexively explored critical encounters, probing into how they move(d) in/through work–home spaces during the isolation and uncertainties experienced during the pandemic. This article serves as a methodological unpacking of our arts-based research process that used Zoom discussions, memory writing, individual artmaking, and sharing stories. More-than-human capacities provide a pathway to negotiate trauma, fears, loneliness, and isolation that affectively circulate through the COVID moment.