Dizzying Endings: On the Multiple Alterlives of a Living Exhibition

How should living exhibitions end? In this article, I discuss this unresolved paradox within the context of ending a living exhibition. However, the article is not seeking practical solutions but rather embrace the paradox as an opportunity to reimagine endings at museums. I begin by proposing to rethink endings challenging the ideas of cultural afterlives and immortality, and offering the concept of alterlives. I then put the concept to work as I develop a materially infused “catalogue” of the multiple endings of an actual living exhibition following how objects, organisms and art installations turn into multiple things. I end speculating the unknown futures of things falling apart and the generative nature of such dizzying endings.