2022
This year's theme is ‘Upkeep’ and will turn the focus back on our own institution, discussing the process of keeping something, such as a building, a conversation, an institute, in good condition. In the wake of the Engage DARCH Report which identified and highlighted the work of all of the grassroots self-organized initiatives within the school, this year we are supporting and enabling these groups to help us construct the culture of the school from within.
'Parity Talks VII: Upkeep' will take place this year in person and in the Architecture Department on the 7th & 8th March 2022. The Athena Lecture, co-hosted by the Wohnforum will kick things off on the evening of the 7th with a lecture by Gabu Heindl, which will be followed by a day of workshops, discussions and talks. Building on all of the conversations and inputs we have had over the last six years, this year will be about keeping the conversation alive with direct actions through live workshops throughout the day.
If you would like childcare during any of the events on the 7th & 8th March please write to us at parity@arch.ethz.ch
18:00 Gabu Heindl - 'Urban Conflicts. Radical Democracy in Architecture and Urban PlanningUrban Conflicts. Radical Democracy in Architecture and Urban Planning' introduced by Jennifer Duyne Barenstein
19:30 Q&A moderated by Marie Glaser
Location : ETH Hönggerberg, HIB Building, Open Space 2
9:10 Welcome by Prof. Tom Emerson, Dean of the Department of Architecture
9:20 Welcome from the Parity and Diversity Commission of the Department of Architecture
9:30 Workshop Introductions followed by coffee and gipfeli
WHERE : ETH Hönggerberg, HIB Building, Open Space 2
Psychologist and Zurich activist Sonja Wolfensberger from Empathie Stadt Zürich will introduce you to the psychological tools from constructive feedback culture and non-violent communication to design a conversation that meets your needs. We change our perspective and learn to not only care for the built environment and our work, but show the same empathy towards ourselves. You’ll be given the possibility to mourn past experiences, recharge and grow strength for future «Crits», so that you remain aware of your needs even in challenging situations.
WHERE : ONA Fokushalle E7
WITH : Sonja Wolfensberger (Empathie Stadt Zürich)
WHERE: ETH Hönggerberg, HIB Building, Open Space 2
WITH : Laia Meier & Shriya Chaudhry (AGN), Elias Knecht (Baubüro 2022),Tom Emerson (D-ARCH) Khensani de Klerk & Nitin Bathla (Department of the Ongoing), Emmanuelle Farine (Fluid Archive), Amy Perkins (Parity Group), Qianer Zhu, Carolina Contreras Alvarez (Sekundos), Shen He & Juan Barcia Mas (Querformat)
2021
Together we will discuss our current understanding of good practice, who decides what is good, and the problems of education based on ideas of excellence. Joined by Womxn in Design (Harvard GSD), Claiming*Spaces (TU Wien), DRAG lab (EPFL), Parity Board (TUM), and the Parity Front the Parity Talks 6 will be acting as the departure point for a season of digital events across the five institutions, propelling further debates on gender, equity, inclusion and belonging.
Meike Schalk ( she/her) is an architect, associate professor in urban design and urban theory and docent in architecture at KTH School of Architecture. She is head of the doctoral program in Architecture, and the interdisciplinary doctoral program in Art, Technology and Design, a temporary collaboration with Konstfack - the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Currently, she is also an Anna Boyksen Fellow at the Technical University in Munich (2020-2022) exploring gender- and diversity-relevant themes in technosciences. Between 2011-2016, she was the programme director in Architecture of the cross-disciplinary and interdepartmental MSc programme Sustainable Urban Planning and Design. Until recently, I served as external examiner for the MA program in Urban Design at Sheffield University, School of Architecture, 2016-2020. From 2015-2018, she was director of the Strong Research Environment: Architecture in Effect: Rethinking the Social. Since 2019, she is a member of the committee for artistic research at the Swedish Research Council.
Dr. Katarina Bonnevier (Stockholm & Sankt Anna, 1970) is an artist, architect and researcher. In her practice of building and set design, art installations, performances, workshops, lecturing and writing she explores relations of architecture, aesthetics and power, especially from gender perspectives, informed by theatricality, queerness and the more-than-human. She is currently engaged in artistic research Troll perception in the Heartlands (affiliated to Linnaeus University, Växjö, funded by the Swedish Research Council), a transdisciplinary design project emerging out of southern rural Sweden, expanding the formal field used to generate sustainable future scenarios through site-specific crafting and crafting video animations informed by folktales and mythology. She is part of the upcycling workshop Möbelverkstan (with Madam snickeri), Söderköping and a founding member of the collaborative practice MYCKET (www.mycket.org).
Their recent projects include the participatory and permanent public space for dance and music Kepsen at Råslätt, Sweden (Public Art Agency Sweden, Mix Dancers Academy, Vätterhem, Jönköping municipality, Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, 2016-20), Kämpaoke - the karaoke bar with protest songs that care, Stockholm Culture Festival, Public Art Agency Sweden, 2019), The Grotto of Naiads (transformation of pedestrian tunnel, Haninge, 2018). Bonnevier received her Master in Architecture (1997) and her Doctoral degree (2007) with the dissertation Behind Straight Curtains: Towards a Queer Feminist Theory of Architecture (Stockholm: Axl Books, 2007) from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm. She holds a M. Arch from Iowa State University, 2001, and has extensive experience as educator (KTH, Konstfack, HES-SO).
The third talk is going to be held by Eric Robsky ( they/them).
They are a Visiting Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Harvard GSD. They are also a Lecturer in Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT and a research fellow of the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium (NERFC).
Robsky Huntley is a GIScientist, geographer, and designer who builds mapping tools in collaboration with and alongside movements for social justice. They received an Antipode Foundation Scholar-Activist Grant in collaboration with Graphe, the Toronto-based Mining Injustice Solidarity Network, and Beyond Extraction to design citizen science workshops investigating the economic geography of the Canadian extractive industries. They hold a PhD in Geography from the University of Kentucky; a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan; and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performing Arts Technology with a concentration in Media Arts and Engineering, also from Michigan. They are also co-director of Graphe, a collective of critical scholars, practitioners, and teachers who understand mapping as a political intervention and as a distinct mode of inquiry.
AFARAI is an Amsterdam-based architectural agency that specializes in spatial design and strategy, led by architect Afaina de Jong. The studio’s aim is to cross the boundaries of the traditional architecture practice by dealing with the existing city with an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach, integrating theory and research with design. As a studio AFARAI considers itself a feminist practice that encourages change on social and spatial issues and that accommodate differences.
Afaina has worked for renowned international firms before establishing her own firm in 2005. With her creative studio AFARAI she works on the boundary of architecture and art. Her work is deeply connected to represent people and cultural movements that are not traditionally represented in architectural form. By using form languages, colors, patterns and narratives that are other, she works towards a more inclusive experience of space. Afaina is a contemporary thinker, keeping a pulse on the now while at the same time projecting a unique vision of the future. For Afaina it is important that architecture is not only perceived, but also experienced and interacted with. Her discourse is international and intersectional, connecting popular culture with architecture.
Afaina has been an active educator for years amongst others at the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, The Sandberg Institute, and ARTEZ and has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University GSAPP in New York, KTH in Stockholm and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. Her design research The Multiplicity of Other is commissioned for the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2021.
WAI Architecture Think Tank is a planetary studio practicing by questioning the political, historical, and material legacy and imperatives of architecture and urbanism. Founded in Brussels in 2008 by Puerto Rican architect, artist, curator, educator, author and theorist Cruz Garcia and French architect, artist, curator, educator, author and poet Nathalie Frankowski, WAI is one of their several platforms of public engagement that include Beijing-based anti-profit art space Intelligentsia Gallery, and the free and alternative education platform Loudreaders.
The work of Garcia and Frankowski has been part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial and exhibitions at MoMA NY, Neues Museum Nuremberg, and MAAT Lisbon. They are authors of Narrative Architecture: A Kynical Manifesto, Pure Hardcore Icons: A Manifesto on Pure Form in Architecture, A Manual of Anti-Racist Architecture Education, and the upcoming book From Black Square to Black Reason: A Post-Colonial Architecture Manifesto.
Moderated by Vera Sacchetti
Grosman + Lauren Janko
Moderated by Marlene Wagner
Grosman + Lauren Janko
Moderated by Marlene Wagner