Reintroducing Afterall: publishing, practice and rethinking global art narratives

At Central Saint Martins, Afterall operates at the intersection of research, publishing, and teaching. Afterall publishes the bi-annual Afterall journal as well as four series of books: Exhibition Histories, One Work, Two Works and Critical Readers. Afterall also publishes the online series New Writing. It is a space where contemporary art is not only documented but actively rethought through its social and political contexts.

This month Afterall will release a bumper double issue and in June, Afterall will run a week-long in person writing intensive in Manila, working in association with the department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman and supported by a £30,000 grant from the British Academy Writing Workshop Alumni Grant. This workshop will bring together 20 early career researchers from across Southeast Asia to examine the themes of collectivity and land issues, and how they shape contemporary art and social life.

Afterall functions as both a publisher and a research hub. Its work contributes to institutional research frameworks while also closely working with CSM programmes particularly through the MRes Art: Exhibition Studies.

I sat down with the Afterall team; Adeena Mey, Wing Chan, David Morris and Rada Georgieva, as well as Louise Ingledow, the team’s Project manager to discuss their development of new writers, Exhibition Histories series - their long-term publishing project, and the need to reshape narratives in the discussion of contemporary art.

Building writing communities

Collaboration is central to the Afterall model. Projects are developed collectively across editorial, research and production teams, with contributors often working across multiple strands simultaneously. This collaborative approach extends beyond the institution itself, involving long-term partnerships with artists, writers and cultural organisations across Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

A key focus of Afterall’s work is the need to rethink dominant narratives in contemporary art. Rather than positioning Western perspectives as the default.

“We’ve been trying to move away from having the West as the point of departure for narratives of modern and contemporary art. It’s about platforming conversations that emerge from different local contexts - not necessarily framing them through Western discourse but allowing them to exist on their own terms.” - Adeena Mey, Research Fellow and Editor, Afterall

“Through Afterall’s work with partners and writing communities in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, topics come through that wouldn’t typically encounter in mainstream art publications,” David Morris adds, “Whether that's discussions around women’s artist collectives, or how political art is understood in specific places like the Philippines. These are conversations that are already happening, and our role is to support and amplify them, rather than reshape them into something more familiar.”

This commitment is reflected in Afterall’s work with emerging writers and cultural practitioners, including the development of a writing workshop in Manila in collaboration with partners across its international network. Led by members of the editorial and research team, the workshop brings together emerging writers and cultural practitioners to develop critical writing in dialogue with local contexts. Working closely with participants, the team supports both the conceptual and editorial development of their work, creating a space for exchange across disciplines and geographies. Participants often move from workshops into publication, contributing research and critical perspectives that might otherwise remain underrepresented in international art discourse.

An evolving ecosystem

“We began as a publisher and then developed into a research center, so our work spans publishing, teaching and research, but all of it is grounded in this interest in how art operates within wider social and political frameworks, and how those contexts shape both the production and the understanding of art.” David Morris, Research Fellow and Editor, Afterall

Alongside its journal, Afterall produces the Exhibition Histories series, a long-term publishing project that revisits key exhibitions and artistic movements through detailed research and collaboration. Recent work How to Pin Down Smoke: ruangrupa since 2000 includes a publication on an Indonesian collective spanning more than 25 years, developed over nearly a decade through archival research, artist collaboration and student involvement.

As Afterall continues to evolve, it remains committed to a model of practice that prioritises collaboration, criticality and long-term engagement. In connecting research, teaching and publishing across international contexts, it offers a way of working that does not seek to simplify complexity, but to hold space for it, creating the conditions for new conversations, new perspectives and new forms of understanding to emerge.

Interdisciplinary paths, shared practice

The breadth of Afterall’s work is reflected in the diverse backgrounds of its team. Researchers and editors come from across disciplines. Rada Georgieva’s background is in art history, David Morris’ is in philosophy, Adeena Mey has a PhD in Film aesthetics, and Wing Chan began her career as a volleyball player.

Following non-linear paths into research, moving between artistic practice, academic study and editorial work has enabled a range of perspectives to inform Afterall’s approach, allowing it to operate across different modes of thinking and making, and reinforcing its commitment to interdisciplinarity as both a method and a lived experience.