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- The Unnatural, a closing day at La Casa Encendida, and a residency open call for agents in Spain
The Unnatural, a closing day at La Casa Encendida, and a residency open call for agents in Spain
There's something about the word unnatural. It draws a line, and then asks you to cross it. This month we launch a new program, open a residency call, and close a six-month journey in public. All happenings are found below.
OPEN REGISTRATION Queer Ecologies: The Unnatural
What is natural? What is deviant? And who gets to decide? Developed with the Institute of Queer Ecologies, The Unnatural is a 15-week online program that brings together queer theory, ecological thinking, and artistic practice to unsettle the ways "nature" has been constructed, policed, instrumentalized, and to imagine what it could become. With Paul B. Preciado, Brigitte Baptiste, Carlos Motta, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, Cy X, and program leads Lee Pivnik, Nicolas Baird, Yuri Tuma and more.
September–December 2026, Monday evenings CET. No application required — spots are filled on a first-come, first-served basis.
PIP 2026 closing day at La Casa Encendida
Climate fiction won't save us, wrote Jeff VanderMeer. But imagination rooted in community, care, and listening just might. The 2026 cohort of the Postnatural Independent Program has spent six months exploring worldbuilding as collective practice: imagining pasts, presents, and futures, planets to construct, transform, or undo. Now they wrap up this journey publicly, and you're invited.
This upcoming 6th June, we shall spend a full day at La Casa Encendida that moves between the academic and the festive: a conversation between Brigitte Baptiste and Andrés Jaque (free ticket required), a communal lunch by socially-engaged Lakook project, the presentation of the cohort's collective results, the performance And yet, it's not hopeless by Nahum, and a closing DJ live set by Princess Papaya (free ticket required). Broadcast live on La Casa Encendida Radio and later findable on Tender Radio.
The PIP program is supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Madrid and the Goethe-Institut Madrid.
The week leading up to this finissage, Nahum leads the workshop Instrucciones para ser habitado (Instructions to be inhabited) at the same venue.
Open Call: National Artistic Research Residency
Residency dates: 15 Oct - 30 Nov 2026. Start and end dates can adapt to the resident.
Applications open until June 30. Citizens and residents of the Spanish state are eligible to apply.
Applications are open for our six-week artistic research residency in Madrid this fall. The residency includes workspace, accommodation, mentoring, production funding, and culminates in a publication, a public event, and a sound piece for Tender Radio.
Jury: Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz (Centro Botín, Santander) and Catalina Lozano (Artium, Vitoria-Gasteiz). Apply by June 30 in Spanish or English.
Cthulhu Books T-shirts: Unlearning Human
We’ve always wanted to make t-shirts. So we finally did. Unlearning Human: a small run, screen printed locally on 100% cotton in Madrid. Three designs: Octopus, Ladybug, Frog. No restocks, just what we made.
