Podcast Episode #7

Joy within The Trouble

In this episode, committee members Freya Yeates and Khadea Santi speak with artists and co-founders of The Institute for Postnatural Studies, Gabriel Alonso and Yuri Tuma.

Gabriel and Yuri were invited to reflect upon ideas which informed their workshop sessions Desirable Futures, Hybrid Bodies, which were produced for Rhubaba’s Care, Resistance…Joy! programme.

The discussion explores how acts of collective joy, listening and imagination can move us beyond staying within times of trouble in ecological crisis and toward actively disrupting the structures of power that maintain it. By positioning collective joy, and speculative-fiction as forms of pleasure activism (Adrienne Maree Brown), we can work against the paralysis of survival and move towards something more like transformation, more like becoming with.

More Information

The Institute for Postnatural Studies is a centre for artistic experimentation from which to explore and problematise postnature as a framework for contemporary creation. Founded in Madrid 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 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.

In parallel, the Institute has created the publishing platform Cthulhu Books.

We've made a reading list available for this podcast with a selection of relevant texts and resources mentioned in the conversation: reading-list-joy-within-the-trouble.pdf