Institute for
Postnatural Studies

The loss of human centrality, the consequences of anthropic action, environmental aesthetics and otherness or the reproductions and displacements of natural phenomena, have reconfigured throughout the last century the way in which thought compromises or problematizes the natural, sparking a discussion that blurs the boundaries between aesthetics, ethics and politics. Organisms that grow roots as they go; such is the meaning of ‘radicante’, a new tool for collective thinking and action. Through affect, situated practice, and a new critical aesthetic consciousness via curatorial practice, we will seek to provide tools for the creation of artistic proposals that have real-world consequences.

Delving into some of the most urgent issues related to the current ecological crisis and the necessary redefinition of human activity on the planet and its relationship with other beings, these meeting will focus on curatorial practices that assert a nomadic, transformative, and rooting positioning in the face of contemporary urgencies.

“The relationship with the natural world not as a source to learn from… as the knowledge extracted from it. I think that there is a difference between learning from the outside and truly feeling from within, having an experience that allows us to understand things in a different way, a sort of embodied epistemology. Art has the ability to do this.”

Filipa Ramos

Through the perspective of Filipa Ramos, an independent curator (VIII Biennale Gherdëina, “Bodies of Water”, XIII Shanghai Biennale, Vdrome, among others), we will discuss different ways of speaking about and with other animals, questioning the idea of empathy and how it needs to be reconsidered for new modes of connection and transforming. We will also debate the role that legality is playing in the anthropomorphization of landscapes, territories and animals and how these bureaucratic entanglements obscure the complexities of life and the distinct and unique landscapes.

Filipa Ramos, born in Lisbon, is a writer, teacher and curator. Her research focuses on the relationships between contemporary art and film, how moving images address environmental and ecological issues and, in particular, the ways in which artists' films foster interspecies relationships between humans, non-humans and machines. She teaches on the MRes Arts at Central Saint Martins (London) and in the MA program at the Institute of Arts, Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (Basel). Ramos is the founding curator of Vdrome, a program of film screenings by visual artists and filmmakers that she runs with Andrea Lissoni. She is the curator of the symposia series "The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish" with Lucia Pietroiusti for the Serpentine Galleries, London.

The practice developed by Lorenzo Sandoval is related to the idea of encounter: the entities that are arranged generate a series of relationships; sometimes, they occur between pieces, between various inscription formats, or between different narrative forms. Other times, these encounters take place between people. Most often, it is a combination of both (pieces and people) through devices that generate machine narratives. In this event, projects related to the Nómadas y radicantes symposium and the Institute for Postnatural Studies will be presented, concluding with a conversation with Lorenzo Sandoval, where he introduces two projects: “Shadow Writing” (about divergent genealogies of the relationships between computing, photography and textiles) and “Garganta/Brazo/Surco” (about extractive practices of mining, construction and agribusiness in the Campo de Cartagena and Mar Menor).

Lorenzo Sandoval (Madrid, 1980) works as an artist, filmmaker and curator. He holds a B.F.A and a Masters in Photography, Art and Technology from the UPV (Valencia, Spain). He received curatorial prizes such as Inéditos 2011, Can Felipa curatorial prize and Nogueras Blanchard 2012. He won the art prize 'Generación 2017' presented in La Casa Encendida (Madrid) and ‘V Beca DKV- Álvarez Margaride’ for ‘Shadow Writing (Algorithm /Quipu)’ at LABoral, Gijón, 2017. Sandoval was nominated for the ‘Berlin Art Prize 2018’ and ‘Premio Arte Contemporáneo Cervezas Alhambra 2020’. He presented 'Shadow Writing (Lace/Variations)' in Lehman + Silva Gallery in Porto and Nottingham Contemporary. He was part of 'Canine Wisdom for the Barking Dog. Exploring the sonic cosmologies of Halim El Dabh' curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Kamila Metwaly and Marie Helénè Pereira for Dak'art Biennale 2018. Sandoval was artist in residency with Bisagra in Lima, culminating in an exhibition at Amano Museum Textile Museum. He was part of the Miracle Workers Collective representing Finland in the Venice Biennale 2019. He presented the film ‘Shadow Writing (Fábrica Colectiva)’ at IVAM Alcoi, a research on the collectivization of factories related to sound. In 2020, presented “Shadow Writing” with pieces from all the chapters of the project, curated by Emanuele Guidi at Centro Párraga in Murcia. He participated in “Here History Began. Tracing the Re/Verberations of Halim El-Dabh” at SAVVY Contemporary, with the commissioned film“The Book of Vibration” on El Dabh. Together with Tono Vízcaino, produced ‘Industria. Matrices, tramas y sonidos’ for IVAM in 2021. In 2022, opened 'Las formas que sostienen el discurso' at The Liminal, a collaboration with Floreal Rodríguez de la Paz, with a film on the anarchist monument build in the proximities of the Albatera Concentration camp. In 2018, he started the research for his current research project “Garganta/Brazo/Surco”, which as an output will have a film titled “That summer of ‘22”. Since 2015, Sandoval runs The Institute for Endotic Research, which opened as a venue in 2018.