Tentacular Writing

ETH Zürich and EPFL Lausanne, hosted by Somalgors74, 2021

This summer school for doctoral students set out to explore writing as a collective, situated practice—countering the often-isolating gestures of academic production. The village of Tschlin became the stage for a series of performative explorations into how architecture and landscape can be experienced, recorded, and written. We bathed in the fountain, traced the weathered textures of facades, captured smells, sounds, and atmospheres, and followed paths toward a dying tree. These gestures unfolded into a practice of tentacular writing: words and marks produced through walking, touching, smelling, listening, and sharing. Architecture here was approached as something lived and enacted—inscribing itself in bodies and writing alike. The engagements generated countermaps and collective inscriptions that reimagine how spaces can be sensed, narrated, and co-authored. Tentacular writing took place as a joint ETH Zürich and EPFL summer school, and was taught by our invited guest tutors: Prof. Dr. Jane Rendell (UCL), Dr. Polly Gould (UCL), Dr. Sarah Butler, Curdin Tones (Somalgors74) and Ludwig Berger (ETH).

Co-created with Dr. Metaxia Markaki and Sila Karatas; more.

Photographs by Dr. Nitin Bathla; First photograph: Project by Dr. Polly Gould.