Metamorphosis occurs when we examine history with a new perspective. This is something at the heart of anyone attempting to engage with political and personal shifts. It is at the heart of everything from psychoanalysis to decolonization. In an era of echo-chamber opinions deepened by algorithms that amplify conflict, societies feel far from transformative ideals. Yet, at the centre of all utopias or pro-topias, deep change is possible. We can transform the present and the future by addressing the past. This second issue of EPOCH is loosely devoted to metamorphosis and how we ride the wave of these shifts in the past, present, and future.

They came on vast ships from the black and swelling beyond. Propelled into Earth’s orbit by fires beyond all elemental reckoning, they were masters of space travel long before humans ever even raised their heads in wonder at the night sky. And they brought us gifts. A fabulous wealth of technologies and stories and systems and ways of building and being. And then they left.

Arthur Jafa is an artist whose complex, emotional, and encyclopaedic still and moving image material has rightly made him one of the most lauded artists of the century. He is an artist who uses his platform to show his work in dialogue with others. Jafa has exhibited his artwork alongside people like Ming Smith, Frida Orupabo, Jacob Holdt, and Mark Leckey in his solo shows, catalogues, or curated magazine issues. Here, art is a conversation–conceptually, art historically, as well as socio-politically.