Call for participation

Performing Ends 2026

University of Antwerp

Belgium

October 28–30, 2026

Ends Collaborative Performance Research calls for participation in a performance studies symposium at the University of Antwerp from 28 to 30 October 2026. We begin with a shared premise that we are living through durational end times—not for the first time, and not for all equally. The world ends—again and again—across scales of ecology and climate, ideology and action, extraction and collectivity, the planetary and the immediate. We might ask whether the metanarrative of finitude is an historical constant. Has the end always loomed ever so close to us as it does today? There is something absurdly performative in the idea that humans can now calculate our own extinction better than at any other time in our history just as we also fail to avoid it. We pin our end to the planet’s, only to realize that we, like everything else, share different ends. As Eva Horn reminds us, “the fantasy of the future as catastrophe is the emblem of a new, highly ambivalent attitude toward the future, marked by a strange fixation with catastrophe as a moment when an ultimate truth is revealed.” 

All ends are not the same. But will we end together? And what is the meaning of togetherness when facing the end? Whose and which worlds are ending? This symposium seeks to explore further how we think, work, and exist together amidst ongoing conditions of endings. We understand the ends are inflected with and performed through capitalist and colonial purposes. In the face of planetary extinctions and systemic unravelings, we are interested in how performance troubles and resists such ends and also how it facilitates and accelerates such conditions. A key aspect of this gathering is to consider how we might cultivate practices of cooperation, share knowledge generously, and foster sustainable modes of research grounded in reciprocity, attentiveness, and mutual care.

Possible topics include, but are not restricted to the intersections of theatre, performance, and:

• Durational and sudden ends of worlds, lands, and languages

• Extinction and the ecological crisis

• Decolonial and indigenous perspectives on (world) endings

• Wars, conflicts, and ends of nation states

• Democratic ends and the dead ends of authoritarianism and patrimonialism

• More-than-human perspectives on and rituals of death, dying, grief, and mourning

• Posthuman and posthumous dramaturgies and theories

• Co-finitude and collective thought, action, and scholarship

• Cooperative epistemic, planetary, and ecological work

• Queer politics and endings 

• Critical race theories among the ends

• The proliferation of AI and ends of remembrance and memory

• The ends of arts and humanities (and other academic) departments and institutions of higher-education 

• The end of utopic and dystopic narratives of “the end”

We invite proposals in all forms, including but not limited to: artistic research presentations, performance lectures, roundtables, workshops, scholarly presentations, and provocations that address the key themes and ideas of the symposium. We encourage proposals from artists, unaffiliated researchers, graduate students, and faculty of all ranks. 

Proposals should include a title, a short abstract or description of the work (~300 words), and a short bio. Proposals can be submitted through the following form:

https://forms.gle/2i8WDnrxv7xCbcuq6

The deadline for proposals is December 1, 2025.

As an experiment in collective thinking, writing, and performance-making, all symposium participants will be asked to contribute to a shared online space and to participate in a collaborative process in advance of the event in Antwerp. More information will be shared once your proposal is accepted.

If you have any questions about the symposium or proposals, please email us at: PerformingEnds2026@gmail.com

About Ends

Ends is an open-access and multipolar organisation that initiates research projects at the intersection of posthumanism and collaborative theatre and performance research methods. The 2026 symposium builds on three iterations of online international symposia called World Ends Day (https://performingends.com/world-ends-day) and the recent publication of Mourning the Ends (https://punctumbooks.com/titles/mourning-the-ends-collaborative-writing-and-performance/), a collectively authored book by fifteen scholars and artists. We are based across the planet and operate in a lab-based model where ideas can be tried and tested cooperatively with peers. Our work remodels and revamps established models in academia that center singular voices and outcomes. Instead, our vision de-centers singular authorship and works towards epistemic co-finitude. Symposium updates will be posted here: https://performingends.com/ends-symposium-2026 

Conference Organizers

Luca Domenico Artuso, University of Antwerp
Felipe Cervera, University of California, Los Angeles

Renata Gaspar, i2ADS/ESMAE, Porto

Sozita Goudouna, Goldsmiths, University of London

Kyoko Iwaki, University of Antwerp

Eero Laine, University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Sarah Lucie, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Juliana Moraes, University of Campinas

Evan Moritz, University of Toronto

Jonas Schnor, University of Antwerp

Theresa Spielmann, University of Antwerp

Aneta Stojnić, Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, New York 

Nilüfer Ovalıoğlu Gros, Paris Sciences et Lettres University- National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts