Postnatural Independent Program by the Institute for Postnatural Studies. Practical info: Six month program, February 1–July 16, 2023; Two online sessions per week, Mondays and Wednesdays at 6pm (CET); All sessions will be in English; Apply here until January 10, 2023; More info here & here; Video about the program.
The first edition of the Postnatural Independent Program (PIP) will explore the new implications of postnature as a framework for contemporary creation. In the form of an experimental educational platform, we will speculate and question not only contemporary ecologies but also new academic approaches and radical notions of learning together.
Delving into some of the most urgent issues linked to the current ecological crisis and the necessary redefinition of human activity on the planet and its relation to other beings, the program aims to provide tools for the creation of artistic proposals that have real consequences for the world. It is conceived as a six-month research cycle, structured in three theoretical modules that will accompany the development of the participants’ practices, and will offer two in-person meetings in Madrid as intensive community-building experiences, with field trips, workshops, and tutorships, where we will develop original collaborative research projects. The incredible faculty is made up of some of the most renowned contemporary thinkers, artists, curators, and designers who work on a planetary scale, rethinking the agencies of art around today’s challenges.
PIP is aimed at professionals with varied training and experience in the fields of visual arts, philosophy, performance, film, design, journalism, digital media, social studies, and political science, among others.
More-than-human ecologies for desirable futures
The PIP will revolve around the concept of postnature, understood as a political arena and subject in conflict. It will function as a debate platform from which to investigate, and problematize new approaches to artistic and thought practices through political ecologies, post-Darwinist aesthetics, and the creation of more-than-human ethics that contribute to the definitive dissolution of the nature-culture binomial in all its sequels, variants and consequences.
The program will also navigate concepts such as the Anthropocene or the Chtulhucene in its multiple meanings and implications, ecological parliaments and perspectivism, colonialism and the necropolitics associated with human and non-human “resources”, new materialisms, ecofeminisms, and queer theories.
It also includes two –not mandatory but highly recommended– face-to-face meetings in Madrid, designed as intensive community-building experiences, with field trips, workshops, and tutorials, where collaborative research will be encouraged. The working sessions, meetings, and presentations during these face-to-face laboratories will be hosted by consolidated art institutions.
Apply until January 10th to be part of this experience, and join us in rethinking the world through ecology, proposing new forms of academic experience, and creating networks for art and thought practices that address the real challenges of contemporaneity.
For more practical information about the PIP, please visit the website and do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have at pip [at] instituteforpostnaturalstudies.org.
Faculty: Karen Barad, Filipa Ramos, Báyò Akómoláfé, Claire Colebrook, Cary Wolfe, Paloma Contreras, Gesyada Siregar, Stacy Alaimo, Mary Maggic, Lorenzo Sandoval, The Institute of Queer Ecology, Uriel Fogué, Gabriel Alonso, Yuri Tuma and Clara Benito
Institute for Postnatural Studies
The Institute for Postnatural Studies is a center for artistic experimentation from which to explore and problematize postnature as a framework for contemporary creation. Founded in 2020, it is conceived as a platform for critical thinking, a network that brings together artists and researchers concerned about the issues of the global ecological crisis through experimental formats of exchange and the production of open knowledge. From a multidisciplinary approach, the Institute develops long-term research focused on issues such as ecology, coexistence, politics, and territories. These lines of investigation take different shapes and formats, including seminars, exhibitions, and residencies as spaces for academic and artistic experimentation.
