Her work, in the form of installation, drawing, photography and art projects, deals with what she calls "contradictory truths", and the capacity to "create a maximum by reversing a minimum.
Participants of Alava's art projects include Miguel Álvarez-Fernández, Angela Bulloch, Alison Knowles, Eduardo Lago, Cai Guo-Qiang, Ester Partegas, Robert Ryman, Jason Schmidt, Merrill Wagner and Lawrence Weiner.
Alava's work has been described as "minimalist studies in what might be called the qualities of fragility" by Sandra Sider, of Fiber Arts magazine; "drawing (...) with thread and shadows in an almost invisible wall installation" by Holland Cotter of The New York Times;[5] "it achieves the impossible; it makes us pay attention to things we don't pay attention to anymore", by Alfonso Armada of Diario ABC; "often made from the humblest of materials, her art nevertheless gives off just the faintest trace of intense and prolonged concentration.
[7] For Land of No One (2000), pieces of letters are attached with sewing pins to the wall allowing "the possibility of its own destruction if we walk or breathe too close to it.
"[7][8][9] For Tightropewalkers (2000), Alava invites the audience to enter into an empty room with drawings on the wall made out of thread, sewing needles and shadows.
[14] For Tell Me the Truth (2008), Alava invites the audience to enter a small room with nine black and white photographs depicting the struggle between a nail and a thread, both anchored to the floor.
The project ends when Alava personally invites the director of the museum to participate in this ephemeral and impossible-to-document art project.,[19] For Find Me (2009), Alava asked artists Lars Chellberg, Barbara Holub, Paul Kos, Ester Partegàs, Merrill Wagner, Robert Ryman, Arne Svenson, Lawrence Weiner and Maria Yoon, to create an artwork in order for her to hide it somewhere in New York City and the Tenderloin District of San Francisco.
Alava also hid at the Main San Francisco Public Library an artist book titled FIND ME 2.0 with the exact locations.
Participants of Trust Me: Ellen Fisher, Mayrav Fisher, Jonathan Goodman, Jessica Higgins, Erika Kawalek, Erika Knerr, Alison Knowles, Ferran Martin, J. Morrison, Gordon Sasaki and J. G. Zimmerman,[21] For the book project Tell Me the Truth/Dime la verdad, 2008-2013 (2013), Alava asks eleven professionals from different fields to write an essay about the possibility or impossibility of telling truths in their fields: science, law, art, journalism, politics, history.