Parity Talks IV: Making “Excellence” Work
Author: Parity Group
Tags: #Parity Talks IV
Symposium and discussion forum surrounding the issue of gender parity within the architectural and planning disciplines.
parity
talks
The Parity group is a fluid group of students, assistants and professors from the department of architecture at ETH Zürich who meet to discuss issues around gender and diversity, organizing the yearly Parity Talks in March.
Supporters of the Parity Talks 2025
ETH Zurich, Department of Architecture (D-ARCH)
Institute of Technology in Architecture (ITA)
Institute of Design and Architecture (IEA)
Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta)
Chair of Architecture and Care, Anna Pugjaner
Chair of Architecture & Urban Design, Hubert Klumpner
Chair of Architecture and Design, Christian Kerez
Chair of Art in Space and Time, Rosa Barba
Chair of Being Alive, Teresa Gali-Izard
Association of Assistants at the ETH Zürich Department of Architecture (AAA)
Chair of Construction Heritage and Preservation, Silke Langenberg
Chair for the History and Theory of Architecture, Marten Delbeke
NEWROPE Chair of Architecture & Urban Transformation
universum carrousel journey, Jan de Vylder
Chair of Affective Architectures, An Fonteyne
Chair for the History and Theory of Architecture, Philip Ursprung
Architecture of Territory, Milica Topalovic
PARTNERS
DRAG lab (EPFL)
Parity Board (TUM)
and the Parity Front
© 2024 Parity Group
Web Design by Donia Jornod and Rodhlann Jornod
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this website belong solely to the authors, and not necessarily to the ETH Zurich and its departments or the individuals affiliated with ETH Zurich.
On its tenth anniversary, Parity Talks aims to facilitate a collective reflection on where we stand; What has been done? What have we achieved? What does doing parity work in the school mean? Where does the parity and diversity project stand at the D-ARCH? And – equally important – what is yet to be done?
We want to take this opportunity to look inwards, at institutional structures, questioning privileges and systematic discriminatory practices. We want to expand and elaborate our commitment to parity and diversity issues, and consciously tackle questions that are intimately linked to gender and sexuality but have not yet been adequately addressed, such as decolonial perspectives, classism, racism, ableism, and ageism among others.
Opening with a plenum of past and present Parity Group members, we will continue with a series of workshops collaboratively conceptualised by students, faculty and members of the Parity Group, inviting critical external voices to inform our discourse and reflections. These will be focussed on how privilege and access – or lack thereof – informs the culture at D-ARCH and beyond, and to what extent non-normative positions are present and encouraged in research and teaching. At a crucial point in its life, this year’s Parity Talks are intended as a moment when members of the department can come together to chart a path forward and devise a series of programs, goals, actions.
18:15 – 19:30 Athena Lecture. Christina Varvia: Where Do We Stand? Across the Border
followed by Q&A with Lisa Maillard, by ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE
@HIL E4
09:00–14:00 Plenary Programme PARITY TALKS X
09:00 – 09:20 Welcome by Vice Dean and PDK, introduction by Parity Group
@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer
09:20 – 10:50 Keynote. Giving Voice: Transnational Narratives in Architecture & Education
by Igea Troiani, moderated by Nitin Bathla
@HIL E71.1 (TBC)
11:00 – 12:30 Where Do We Stand? Plenum with Former & Current Members of the Parity Group
with Blanka Major, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Daniela Ortiz dos Santos, Giacomo Rossi, Linda Sjøqvist, Orkun Kasap, Qianer Zhu, Torsten Lange, Paul Grieguszies, and Shriya Chaudhry.
moderated by HE Shen 何珅 and Emma Kaufmann LaDuc
@HIL E67 (Rote Hölle)
12:30 – 14:00 Just Soup. Seasonal Vegetable Soup with Sourdough Bread & Wildgreen Pesto
by Airas Sáchez Keller, Anne-Sophie Loretan, Elisaveta Kriman, Franziska Gödicke, Lisa Maillard, Nicolas Rolle, Orkun Kasap, Shriya Chaudhry, Virginia Zaretskie
@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer
14:00 – 17:15 Workshop Programme PARITY TALKS X
14:00 – 17:15 Our Lives in Social Space – A Performative Workshop (per invitation only)
by Paola De Martin, Anh Tran, Orkun Kasap
@HIL D34.2 (architektura office)
14:00 – 15:30 The Architecture of the “War Against Anti-Semitism”: A Critical Excavation, Analysis and Trans-Semitic Imaginarium (register here)
by Sofia Gloor and Jason Oberman
@HIL E2 (Baubibliothek)
14:00 – 15:30 How a Wall Gets to The Hague: Broken: a Documentary at the Heart of International Law by SEKUNDOS (Qianer Zhu, Mona Lecoultre, Carolina Contreras Alvarez, Aymane Filali) with the produder Stefan Ziegler
@HIL E67 (Rote Hölle)
14:00 – 15:30 (Un)Learning Excellence: Organizing for Solidarity in the Design Studio (register here) by Antoine Iweins, Gianna Ledermann, Kyra Michel and Noémie Zurbriggen, Nitin Bathla, Elisaveta Kriman, HE Shen 何珅.
@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer
15:45 – 17:15 Creating with Neurodivergence by Paula-Marie Bugla, Lisa Maillard, and Mikki Soriano.
@HIL E 70.5 (Care.)
15:45 – 17:15 Norm Spotting – Unveiling HIL’s Obstacles by trans*formativ, with Barbara Schaub
@Hönggerberg Campus Public Space, Meeting point in front of HIL main entrance
15:45 – 17:15 Can Your Diversity Speak? A Decolonial Ritual (register here) with Estefania Cuero, Reyaa Wynn Peier Morgado, Unmasking Space by HE Shen 何珅, Nitin Bathla and Elisaveta Kriman
@HIL E67 (Rote Hölle)
17:15 – 18:20 Closing Programme PARITY TALKS X
17:20 – 18:20 Closing Conversation & Parity Group Award Ceremony by Parity Group
@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer
Using the resources from the Prix Meret Oppenheim, awarded to the Parity Group by the Swiss Government in 2023, the group intends to dedicate the prize money to support projects advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion at D-ARCH. To mark the tenth anniversary of the Parity Talks, we are launching a yearly Parity Group Award to recognize outstanding student work critically engaging with themes like gender, sexuality, inequalities, and decolonial perspectives, among others. During the award ceremony, two design or research projects from the past two semesters will be awarded CHF 1,000 each.
18:20 “Geschwellti mit Kääs und Salat” with a Local Wine Pairing
by Airas Sáchez Keller, Anne-Sophie Loretan, Elisaveta Kriman, Franziska Gödicke, Lisa Maillard, Nicolas Rolle, Orkun Kasap, Shriya Chaudhry, Virginia Zaretskie
@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer
The idea of the fluid archive might have existed since a long time ago. Across wildly divergent geographic contexts and vast time spans, communities that are willing to build resistance against oppression began to talk about alternative futures, listen to voices below the silence, and collect diverse words, talks, texts and ideas that would be otherwise neglected. Collecting not for the sake of owning, but of listening, visiblising and empowering. Hence building such an archive is less about what a world is, but more about what it can become.
The fluid Archive is an ongoing project of the Parity Group that enables a living archiving culture through saving a space. As a curated platform to present and publish the knowledge production and methodology of the Parity Talks, it aims at creating a research tool that supports bottom-up learning initiatives, and a piece of infrastructure that supports offline events of the Parity Group and possibly the decentralisation of the Parity Talks over the course of the year.
The Fluid Archive is a collective project that grows with the community of the Parity Group.
The ninth edition of Parity Talks will be taking place on March 5, 6 and 7th 2024. This year, we shift our focus to openly naming the issues which lead to disparity by finding ways to talk – from different positions and bases of knowledge. We aim for inclusive spaces, to share and – most importantly – to listen, in spite and because of the feelings of discomfort and inconvenience that come with it.
In collaboration with gta Exhibitions and ETH Wohnforum, PARITY TALKS IX will combine carefully curated lectures, discussions, and exhibitions with events and workshops coming from you – our community within – to give space and time for inconvenient yet critical questions: What does it mean to speak up even though it is inconvenient? Who is able to speak up? Why do we choose to remain silent? Where are our blind and deaf spots? Together, we will address how privilege and dominant narratives might impact who is allowed to speak and who is heard, and will set up collective experiments to expand our listening.
In the upcoming Parity Talks we will focus on taking action and bringing together different actors. After asking what it takes to keep a conversation, a building, an institution in good condition, and reflecting on what we can learn from what’s already happening in the cracks of it, we now start gathering ideas to implement change. How do we mobilise and bring together the grassroot collectivities and intelligences already present (in a conversation, in a building, in an institution) to do what needs to be done and act upon what’s still missing?
“Parity Talks VIII: Get your act together!” will take place in the Architecture Department on the 7th & 8th March 2023. The Dean’s Talk with Paul Bouet, co-hosted by the Dean’s Office and the gta institute, and the Athena Lecture with Anna Puigjaner, co-hosted by the ETH Wohnforum, will kick things off on the evening of the 7th, followed by a day of workshops, discussions and talks on the 8th.
Building on the inputs from the last seven Talks, this edition aims to put things into practice: how to act through design, in what we teach, in how we work and learn together? An open call for actions led to the formation of new constellations and collaborations across different chairs, hierarchies, roles and entities in the department, reminding us that it takes mutual support, solidarity and empathy to get things done. We still act too much on our own terms, let’s get our act together.
Guest curator: Parity Group, ETH Zurich Location: ETH Hönggerberg, HIL E67 Rote Hölle Studio Jan de Vylder universum carrousel journey – Carrousel, series of lectures FS 2021
Guest curator: Parity Group, ETH Zurich Location: ETH Hönggerberg, HIL E67 Rote Hölle Studio Jan de Vylder universum carrousel journey – Carrousel, series of lectures FS 2021
Author: Parity Group
Tags: #Parity Talks IV
Symposium and discussion forum surrounding the issue of gender parity within the architectural and planning disciplines.