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 2024

 

Department of Architecture (D-ARCH), ETH Zurich

Chair of Architecture and Care

Professur Mosayebi

Chair of Architecture & Urban Design

Group Anne Hultzsch

Art in Space and Time

Studio Theriot

Chair of Being Alive

NEWROPE

gta Exhibitions

Construction Heritage and Preservation

Chair of the History and Theory of Architecture

NCCR Digital Fabrication

Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta)

Institute of Technology in Architecture (ITA)

Institute of Design and Architecture (IEA)

universum carrousel journey

Studio Tom Emerson

Chair of Affective Architectures

Chair of the History of Art and Architecture

 

PARTNERS

Womxn in Design (Harvard GSD)

Claiming*Spaces (TU Wien)

DRAG lab (EPFL)

Parity Board (TUM)

and the Parity Front

Email

Instagram

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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.


Parity Talks IX: On Inconvenience

On Inconvenience: Learning to Listen, 5-7 March 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. 

The programme is spread over 3 days, but the main focus lies on Wednesday March 6, starting off with a plenary programme in HIB including an opening address by Samia Henni and a roundtable relating the topics on the table back to ETH’s admission policy and partnerships. After a collective lunch performance organised by Querformat, there are different workshops to choose from, for which we kindly ask you to register. We regroup at the end of the day for a collective listening session by SEKUNDOS.

PROGRAMME (Download detailed programme pdf here)

Tuesday, March 5th

10:00–18:00 Symposium. Day of Words by Studio Jan de Vylder
with Emilie Appercé, Tibor Bielicky, Tatjana Blaser, Caspar Bultmann, Asli Cicek, Ellena Ehrl, Lida Freudenreich, Andres Herzog, Elena Lynch, Annamaria Prandi, Miro Roman and Philip Ursprung @ONA Fokushalle

16:00–17:30 Roundtable. Beverly Buchanan: I Broke the House by gta Exhibitions
with María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Anna Gritz, Tonja Khabir, Prudence Lopp, Devin T. Mays, Siddhartha Mitter, Sarah Richter, Jamaal Sheats and Adam Szymczyk @HIB Open Space 2 

17:30–18:00 Guided tour by Samia Henni. Samia Henni: Performing Colonial Toxicity by gta Exhibitions
@gta Foyer (HIL D 50)

18:00 Apéro by gta Exhibitions
@gta Foyer (HIL D 50)

Wednesday, March 6th

9:00–14:00 PLENARY PROGRAMME PARITY TALKS IX
@HIB Open Space 2

9:00–09:15 Welcome by Dean, PDK and Parity Group
@HIB Open Space 2

09:15–10:00 Opening address by Samia Henni invited by Parity Group
@HIB Open Space 2

10:00–11:30 Whose voices are heard? Roundtable on Network, Privilege and Class in ETH convened by Parity Group
with AAA Academic Network Working Group, Paola De Martin (Postdoctoral researcher gta), Raphaela Hettlage (ETH Diversity), Emma Kaufmann LaDuc (Architektura), Zeljko Medved (D-ARCH) and Maria Conen (IEA). Moderation: Orkun Kasap (IDB/ITA)@HIB Open Space 2

11:45–12:30 Launch Fluid Archive Parity Group by Parity Group
@HIB Open Space 2

12:30–14:00 Community Lunch. In Your Throat by Querformat and friends
@HIB Open Space 3 

14:00–18:00 WORKSHOP PROGRAMME PARITY TALKS IX

14:00–16:00 Workshop. Take Nothing For Granted: Communicating with Each Other Across Disciplines and Cultures (register here) by Lea Keller, Kim Norgaard Helmersen, Kaitlin McNally & Bianca Vienni Baptista
@HIB Open Space 3 

14:00–17:00 Workshop. Guilt and Dream (register here) by Studio Jan De Vylder, The Share of Architecture an(d) Attitude and Aslı Çiçek
@HIL F 41.4 (Studio Jan De Vylder) 

15:00–17:30 Workshop. Stories About Home. Listening to Palestinian Poetry (register here) by Elena Rieger, Damla Göre & Elettra Carnelli
@HIL E 71.1 

16:00-18:00 Workshop. Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Coding & Machines (register here) by Karen Antorveza & Qiming Sun
 @HIL E 67 (Red Hell)

16:30–18:30 Collective Reading Workshop. Reading our Otherness Together (register here) by the Chair of Architecture and Care (Anna Puigjaner, Dafni Retzepi, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Lisa Maillard, Pol Esteve Castelló & He Shen)
@HIL Baubibliothek 

17:00–18:00 Workshop. Echoes of the Earth: Listening to a Mountain (register here) by Studio Maria Conen (Coco Räz, Federico Farinatti, Flurina Gradin, Maria Conen & Nora Molari)
@Siemens Auditorium 

18:00 Vernissage exhibition. Unheard Voices, Unseen Spaces by Indiana collective with Océane Brosteaux, Paola Ak and Tim Müller
@HIL Foyer D 1-5

18:30–20:00 CLOSING PROGRAMME PARITY TALKS IX

18:30–20:00 Collective Listening. Dreams For the Front: Listening to Palestine by SEKUNDOS, with tea and fruits by Querformat @HIB Open Space 3

ONGOING

12 Hour Radio Programme by Learning Palestine, hosted by Dept. of the Ongoing
@Fluid Archive website and HIB

Beverly Buchanan: I Broke the House
Samia Henni: Performing Colonial Toxicity
by gta Exhibitions

Thursday, March 7th

18:15–19:30 Athena Lecture. Anna Pagani: On Housing Justice: Let’s Talk About Fixes That Fail, followed by Q&A, by ETH Wohnforum  – ETH CASE
@HIL E3

19:30 Apéro by ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE
@gta Foyer (HIL D 50.05) 

The Fluid Archive

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.

Calendar

05.03.2024
Parity Talks IX
On Inconvenience
08:00-12:00

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. 

07.03.2023
Parity Talks VIII
Get your act together!
07:00-19:00

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.

13.04.2022
Seven Questions Curatorial
Anne Mikoleit / Wuest Partner
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Link

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

06.04.2022
Seven Questions Curatorial
Urbanista
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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

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Tokenism

Author: Petra Van Brabandt & Els Silvrants-Barclay For Parity and Diversity Commission (PDK) & D-ARCH Dean’s Office
Tags: #Parity Talks VIII


Tokenism is a policy or practice that is mainly symbolic, and involves attempting to fulfil one’s obligations with regard to established targets, such as voluntary or mandated parity objectives, with limited efforts or gestures, especially towards underrepresented groups, in ways that will not change dominant power and/or organisational arrangements.

 

Petra Van Brabandt & Els Silvrants-Barclay

For Parity and Diversity Commission (PDK) & D-ARCH Dean’s Office