In Conversation: Gabriel Alonso and Daniel H. Rey from the Institute for Postnatural Studies

Interview by Abdulla Buhijji
Edited by Zeinab Helal

Published on February 24th, 2026

When I first encountered the Institute for Postnatural Studies (IPS) during our opening online session of the Postnatural Independent Program (PIP) program, I did not fully anticipate what it would become for me. Yes, the program itself was expansive and dense with thinkers, artists, ecologists, philosophers, and practitioners whose work stretched across territories and disciplines. But what struck me more than the topics or the speakers was the constellation of people who showed up: people logging in from different time zones and contexts, each carrying their own urgencies and questions. All of us held, in one way or another, a shared sense of care, and perhaps a quiet commitment to resist the flattening of the world into something extractable, measurable, and optimized.

Over time, through discussions, encounters, long pauses, and moments of reflection, I began to understand that IPS, as much as it functions as an institution, is also a space for possibilities, a holding environment. It is a place where uncertainty is allowed, where conditions are formed, where complexity is not simplified for comfort, and where listening becomes as important as speaking. When we finally met in Madrid, that understanding deepened. The conversations moved from screens to shared tables. We debated, questioned, laughed, danced, and cried. At times, we spoke about extinction and grief; at other times, we leaned toward possibility. There were moments of exhaustion, moments of tenderness, moments where someone’s vulnerability subtly shifted the entire room. It felt porous, human and more-than-human braided together, not as a metaphor alone, but as a continuous negotiation of how we position ourselves within larger ecologies.

For this interview, I did not want to impose a rigid set of questions. The program had taught me that some of the most meaningful exchanges emerge organically. So, what follows is not a structured set of questions as much as an echo of how we gathered: conversational, filled with prompts, and flowing. Consider this less an introduction to IPS and more an opening, an invitation to step into the flow of thought that holds it together. And perhaps, one day, to join us in carrying that same sense of care forward.

1. Top to bottom, Performance by Andrea Zarza Canova and Laraaji, The Listening Affect, Porto, Portugal, 2023. Images courtesy of Institute for Postnatural Studies.

Abdulla Buhijji (A.B.): If you were to introduce the Institute to the readers in a way beyond what is read online, what would you say?

Gabriel Alonso (G.A.): While reframing what is nature, we have found ourselves reframing what is human. What is becoming human, or what is humanity, or what kind of humanity we want to feel that we belong to. In that sense, reframing our environment is also looking back at our structures that are shaping our gaze, our identities, but also the conditions in which our desired personalities or subjectivities can unfold. I would say in that sense, the Institute for Postnatural Studies is this porous membrane that mediates within its close but also distant environments in order to create spaces for interaction and transformation.

While reframing what is nature, we have found ourselves reframing what is human.

_{- Gabriel Alonso}

Daniel H. Rey (D.H.R): On a social and emotional level, we see ourselves as a platform for honest conversation that is rooted in the independence with which the platform emerged, and it is also rooted in the independence with which the platform operates. It is a place where we are constantly pushed to think about the role of contemporary institutions before having to engage with contents or methods. The Institute for Postnatural Studies has developed the muscle of engaging with the gestural. By that we mean the gesture of identifying sparks of curiosity, of input, of idea; platforming them and honoring them — be it of a student, or a workshop attendee, or a neighbor in Madrid — in terms of the dimensions of care that go into not having someone's idea go amiss in a super fast-paced world.

The Institute for Postnatural Studies has developed the muscle of engaging with the gestural. By that we mean the gesture of identifying sparks of curiosity, of input, of idea; platforming them and honoring them.

_{- Daniel H. Rey}

G.A: What we are trying to do is to propose a more intimate space for thinking about current urgent crises, to really take it to the subjective, to the intimate, to the individual, while proposing spaces where that collective reparation can happen.

2. HotHouse Flowers, Oslo, Norway, 2024. Image courtesy of Institute for Postnatural Studies.

A.B: It shows how situated your practice is. You evolve with the evolution of what is happening in the moment, and what has been happening. So, I wanted to follow up on that, because you started your platform in 2020 in Madrid, I wanted to ask: how does the timing and location play a role in what the Institute has and is currently doing?

G.A: I like to think that the Institute somehow emerged from the conditions, from the moment that it was happening in, in the sense that it emerged because we just had to be taking care of the conditions for it to then flourish, for it to grow, and for it to exist. There is this motive to think presently, to think of the presence that we are sharing, to think of the temporary conditions of being from many different places, from many different contexts, that we are experiencing together. That all comes together with this very connected situation that we are dealing with in the Institute.

D.H.R: Yeah, I think we find a lot of freedom in questioning the binary — that is so present in contemporary practices, including the arts, architecture, and design — of futurism versus nostalgia. That has allowed us to really engage with geographies that, in a way, problematize spatial-temporal configuration of life. We work with colleagues who are in Beirut, in the same way that they are in Ecuador.

GA: If we understand that we are dealing with time-based practices, then there is that sense to think of how to create the time specificities or the time conditions so that people can be transformed. Our methodologies are trying to say “no” to very instant kinds of deliveries. We want to deepen into things, and that requires time. So, if you think about it, in a time where there is not a crisis of information, there is a crisis of methodologies, there is a crisis of pace, and that is what we are trying to think about from an ecological perspective.

In a time where there is not a crisis of information, there is a crisis of methodologies, there is a crisis of pace, and that is what we are trying to think about from an ecological perspective.

_{- Gabriel Alonso}

D.H.R: Yeah, and I think that is our ultimate contribution, especially to artists that pass through our doors, residencies, and programs. We are now 5 years into IPS existing, and it all goes back to time as a literal treasure; without calling it “an asset” in the sort of money-making sense of it.

A.B: This actually brings me to one thing I find very unique about the Institute, beyond the platforms you create: the way your practice really focuses on the role that language plays in shaping perspectives. I am interested to know more about this approach of how you use vocabulary and think about it.

G.A: Vocabulary, the words we use, the languages we speak, are also elastic for us and are constantly transformed and negotiated. I think we need this understanding of language as something that we all have to be constantly reimagining, rethinking, and also criticizing, because words have a lot of power — they are grounded in their memories, histories, violences, colonial past, and so on. So, I think that what we've learned is to not take for granted any word that we use. We want to give possibilities for the words we use to change meaning, to change agency.

D.H.R: We are not taught, especially in fine art institutions, to quit language. We are constantly renegotiating it, partially because we happen to be public-facing in English; however, our project exists at the intersection of the commonality of the Spanish language with having Portuguese, Polish, and Arabic speakers on our team.

3. Yuri Tuma, Active Hydro-listening, Barcelona, Spain, 2024. Image courtesy of Institute for Postnatural Studies.

A.B: This brings me to one of your projects: “Bibliography of a Sweat”, created in collaboration with the artist Dalia Khalife. If you could tell me more about this project and your relationship with Arab artists, and the proximity you have developed with the Arab world.

D.H.R: I think one of the beautiful things that IPS embodies is that we acknowledge each voice that is shaping it. Dalia, whom I met through an exhibition and performance at Dubai’s NIKA Project Space curated by Nadine Khalil, had been pursuing research first about horses and their fluids at stables in Lebanon. From the fluid part, she jumped to humans, and she started realizing that people in Lebanon were sweating differently. Because of the electrical crisis, people were buying generators, and those generators were creating a new climate at home – triggering new sweat — and all of this wraps up as political sweat. Why dedicate time to punctualize that? I think it is because there are two things here: that project embodies, first, the importance of situatedness, of the artist’s passage allowing for an interactive conversation that will reach our platform, but also — and you were asking about Arab artists — I think Spain is in an awakening process of reinterpreting who its immediate neighbors are. The connection is interesting for us because we find ourselves engaged in a dialogue of interpeninsularity.

I think Spain is in an awakening process of reinterpreting who its immediate neighbors are. The connection is interesting for us because we find ourselves engaged in a dialogue of interpeninsularity.

_{- Daniel H. Rey}

4. Dalia Khalife, I Woke Up a Sweaty Human, performance, 2025. Images courtesy of Institute of Postnatural Studies.

A.B: I find it very special that the Institute has the ability to commit to different local communities and cultures, but, somehow, intersect the same themes. It is very interesting how you find these kinds of commonalities between these cultures. One that stands out is the Global African Situated Practices (GASP) residency. Could you elaborate on why you started GASP in Madrid?

D.H.R: What we realized is that we, as IPS, but also our circuit in Madrid, were being very nurtured by multiple geographies, but the wider African continent remained heavily absent beyond platforms that center Afro-Spanish activism. So we joined forces and realized that these were conversations that we wanted to have but could not pursue alone. It was important for us to work with someone who worked within the territory and comes, and that has an element of return to it. The residency open call ran throughout the spring and we had a very vast amount of applications from over 30 African countries. The selected resident, Jawaad Issoop, joined us for six weeks until November 30th, 2025, all the way from Curepipe, his hometown in the Republic of Mauritius. Many people were asking us “Why Africa?”, and “Why Mauritius?” in this case. One thing that kept coming back is that, by virtue of being located in Spain, we have access to pockets of knowledge that are normally not available in wider European institutions. We are present here as much as we know we are needed in geographies such as Lusaka, Riyadh, Beirut, Berlin, Oslo, Cuenca in Ecuador, Bucaramanga in Colombia, among many others. We believe that we are a tentacular being.

5. Postnatural Independent Program, Global African Situated Practices, 2025. Image courtesy of Institute for Postnatural Studies.

A.B: Yeah, I would also add, you frame yourselves as a platform for critical thought and collaborative connection, but also in response to pressing events happening around. Could you elaborate on that?

G.A: I think that the responsibility of institutions is to be very aware and constantly listen to what is happening in the world. Often, the hyper-bureaucratization of institutions and cultural spaces suddenly disconnects their flexibility and their possibility to question the present or think with the present. So in that sense, to be responsive — both responsible and responsive — is at the core of what contemporary institutions should do. This flexibility is the only way to shape practices today. Because everything is shifting, because, as we were saying, even the words that we are using are constantly renegotiated and changing, how can you not be in constant contact with the world around you if you want to change it?

How can you not be in constant contact with the world around you if you want to change it?

_{- Gabriel Alonso}

A.B: Amazing, it would be easier if you were amplifying dominant voices, but you focus on non-dominant voices and perspectives. I find it special that you shape the institution that way.

G.A: Yeah, and having visibility today is having responsibility. We have some visibility because we are living in some privileged situation that gives us the time and the space for thinking about those problematics. There are people who do not even have the opportunity to think about what is happening, like the genocide in Gaza or the war in Ukraine, because the configuration of events surrounding their lives is so violent. That is why I believe understanding visibility is a privileged situation that requires a ready distribution of information, money, and economy. Something that we are now putting a lot of effort into is how to redistribute the possibilities for people to engage with our platform.

A.B: Maybe you could also tell us what is coming next in terms of programs?

D.H.R: Our program for the end of this year and all of 2026 is very much engaged with questions of mobility — engaging politically with the mobility of agents, parties, cultural practitioners, and knowledge. From a more conceptual standpoint, we are hoping to build on this year's experience by making a large transition to our program for 2026, called ALIENTO. Aliento is a word in Spanish that cannot be translated to English; it means a combination of breath and strength, it is the power that comes by exhaling, not by inhaling. We are looking at how breath can be an indicator of atmospheric conditions, migratory bodies, and their relationship to rest, interspecies relationships, climatic conditions, and ecologies. So, it is going to be a year in which breath, in all its forms, shapes, and nuances is present, and in which we will also deal, even editorially, with questions of the untranslatable. It is preferable to be untranslatable together than very well translated and all alone.

Aliento is a word in Spanish that cannot be translated to English; it means a combination of breath and strength, it is the power that comes by exhaling, not by inhaling.

_{- Daniel H. Rey}

GA: Yeah, which also connects with this idea of Glissant, about the poetics of relation, of the right to become opaque in systems where everything is so transparent, where you have all the information, navigation, and access to everything, the right to opacity, the right to understanding the opacity as an act of resistance, which I think is very important.

A.B: Staying with that idea of relation, how are these concepts materialising in your upcoming seminars and initiatives? What is currently taking shape?

G.A: Now we are doing very different seminars, and I think it is very interesting how diverse they are conceptually. For example, Filipa Ramos has recently wrapped up an amazing program about the relation between animality and architecture and the structures of the urban, but also about the devices and the spaces where animality is being performed, or constrained. We also have Júlia Nueno, who is invited to talk about the technologies of militarization, of genocides, the technologies of research, investigation, and the production of imaginaries and practices today. We have Juan Pablo Pacheco, who is doing this amazing seminar around blue ecologies: water, ice melting, and all the ecological implications of water. That was the menu for last fall’s seminars, and now we are getting ready for two different seminars starting April 2026: What is Postnature? and Water Ecologies ~ Melting.

6. All posters courtesy of IPS.

G.A: In parallel, we have been running/preparing the fourth edition of the Postnatural Independent Program since January, and we are about to launch another master's program that will be starting in September. That will be a very hands-on practical program on ALTERNATIVE ECOLOGIES, conceiving of the artist-as-ecologist, questioning the materiality of production, and dedicated to exploring how experimental artistic practices can reimagine the shifting relations between art, ecology, and contemporary planetary urgencies. In a hybrid format combining online laboratories, individual production, collective study, and three in-person encounters. It invites artists, researchers, and practitioners to rethink ecology beyond representation.

7.Shipibo Conibi Center, Wametisé, Madrid, Spain, 2025. Image courtesy of Institute for Postnatural Studies.

About the Institute for Postnatural Studies
The Institute for Postnatural Studies (IPS) is a center for artistic experimentation and critical research that explores and challenges the concept of the “postnatural” as a framework for contemporary creation. Founded in 2020 and based in Madrid, it operates as both a platform for critical thought and a collaborative network of artists, researchers, curators, and thinkers engaged with the complexities of the ecological crisis. Its activities prioritize collective learning, affective alliances, and experimental forms of knowledge production. Rather than functioning as a conventional institution, the Institute acts as a dynamic ecosystem that critically examines the material, discursive, and aesthetic dimensions of the postnatural condition, offering tools to navigate and reimagine our planetary present by addressing the intersections of ecology and politics.

Gabriel Alonso is the Co-Founder and the Academic and Artistic Director for the Institute for Postnatural Studies. He is also a visual artist and researcher whose practice lies at the intersection of ecology, fiction, and critical theory.

Daniel H. Rey is the current Curator of IPS Programs and Networks, who previously worked as GAD’S Managing Editor from 2020-2021. He currently studies the formation of diasporas, design vocabularies and relational imaginaries across territories and the internet.

About the writer:
Abdulla Buhijji is a Bahraini research-based conceptual artist whose practice centers on world-building as a form of critical inquiry. His work engages personal narrative and wider societal and ecological contexts, reinventing folklore as a tool for investigation, assemblage, and multidimensional logic.

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In Conversation: Gabriel Alonso and Daniel H. Rey from the Institute for Postnatural Studies

While reframing what is nature, we have found ourselves reframing what is human.

The Institute for Postnatural Studies has developed the muscle of engaging with the gestural. By that we mean the gesture of identifying sparks of curiosity, of input, of idea; platforming them and honoring them.

In a time where there is not a crisis of information, there is a crisis of methodologies, there is a crisis of pace, and that is what we are trying to think about from an ecological perspective.

I think Spain is in an awakening process of reinterpreting who its immediate neighbors are. The connection is interesting for us because we find ourselves engaged in a dialogue of interpeninsularity.

How can you not be in constant contact with the world around you if you want to change it?

Aliento is a word in Spanish that cannot be translated to English; it means a combination of breath and strength, it is the power that comes by exhaling, not by inhaling.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 09 –– RUH/JEDSpring 2025

E-09++ Fall 2025-26

E-Issue 08 –– SELSummer 2024

E-08++ Fall 2024

E-Issue 07 –– AUHWinter 2023-24

E-07++ Winter/Spring 2024

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJSpring 2023

E-Issue 05 –– VCE Fall 2022

E-05++ Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 04 –– IST Spring 2022

E-04++ Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 03 ––TYO Fall 2021

E-03++ Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 02 –– NYC Spring 2021

E-02++ Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB Summer 2020

E-01++ Fall/Winter 2020-21

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

Chronological Archive ––

🔍 Legal

In Conversation: Gabriel Alonso and Daniel H. Rey from the Institute for Postnatural Studies

While reframing what is nature, we have found ourselves reframing what is human.

The Institute for Postnatural Studies has developed the muscle of engaging with the gestural. By that we mean the gesture of identifying sparks of curiosity, of input, of idea; platforming them and honoring them.

In a time where there is not a crisis of information, there is a crisis of methodologies, there is a crisis of pace, and that is what we are trying to think about from an ecological perspective.

I think Spain is in an awakening process of reinterpreting who its immediate neighbors are. The connection is interesting for us because we find ourselves engaged in a dialogue of interpeninsularity.

How can you not be in constant contact with the world around you if you want to change it?

Aliento is a word in Spanish that cannot be translated to English; it means a combination of breath and strength, it is the power that comes by exhaling, not by inhaling.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 09 –– RUH/JED
Spring 2025

E-09++
Fall 2025-26

E-Issue 08 –– SEL
Summer 2024

E-08++
Fall 2024

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

E-07++
Winter/Spring 2024

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

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Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

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