Archipelago

‘By continental thinking, the mind runs boldly, but then we feel that we see the world as a block, or a large, or a jet, as a kind of imposing synthesis, just as we can see the general views of the configurations of landscapes and reliefs scroll by through aerial captures. Through archipelagic thinking, we know the rocks of rivers, the smallest of them all, rocks and rivers. (Édouard Glissant¹)

Organised by the Geneva schools of HEAD (Haute école d'art et de design Genève) and HEPIA, (Haute école du paysage, d'ingénierie et d'architecture Genève), Archipelago: Architectures for the Multiverse is the first edition of an international event with local and digital roots, the result of a partnership between three departments - architecture, interior architecture and landscape architecture - which will run from 6 to 8 May 2021 in Geneva.

The first edition of Archipelago offers a time for free research, bringing participants together around questions that may or may not be inherent in the discourse on contemporary architecture, in order to investigate the field of possibilities, particularly for teaching and research within schools. The event presents an approach based on ‘archipelagic thinking’ as a reaction to the domination of European modes of investigation.

Structured over three days, Archipelago proposes a series of questions to conceptualise concrete avenues. The programme will begin by taking stock of the current state of architectural, interior and landscape practices, before identifying emerging and newly visible trends, and concluding with an examination of methods and models, as well as modes of dissemination. These conversations will be framed and broadcast from the city of Geneva, an urban and international centre in Switzerland. They will be presented in a scenography specially designed for the occasion, in the form of an archipelago of rooms of different capacities, linked and interconnected by the activity of its online and face-to-face participants. Archipelago: Architectures for the multiverse is the fruit of a partnership between HEPIA and HEAD within the HES-SO Geneva and is emerging as a field of experimentation enabling participants to break with academic genealogies and put different marginal concepts into relation.Since early 2019, students from HEAD and HEPIA have been working together to imagine a project concept for the spaces that will host Archipelago's programming.Their work will form the basis for the event's infrastructure and visual identity.The event is deeply linked to its institutional context, with the opening and closing taking place in HEAD's Cube, a large-scale auditorium on the school's campus.

¹ Introduction à une poétique du divers, Paris, Gallimard, 1996.