Profusely fantasized and portrayed as time-spaces of danger, insecurity, and risk-taking—often at the expense of victims—the nights of Western cities are also claimed and reimagined as potentially renegotiable territories. Des corps dans la nuit analyzes nocturnal urbanities and examines how they contribute to the perpetuation of systems of domination.
During the workshop, urban nights in the Western context were approached as agents of gendered polarization within the city. Through feminist and queer methodological frameworks, the night was explored as a space where patterns of domination might be renegotiated. Drawing from spatialized subjectivities in scenes from Western films, the workshop investigated how night spaces can either reinforce or subvert these dynamics. The transformation of bodily environments—from clothing to the street—emerged as a vector for potential spatial resistance. By exploring strategies such as protection, spectacularization, disappearance, and disturbance as forms of architectural self-defense, the workshop engaged with the sensory experience of gendered bodies within constructed environments.
Semaine de Tous les Possibles. HEAD – Genève (HES-SO) × ENAC EPFL. RCDAV Scènes de Nuit. Photographs : © Morgan Carlier, Pool Photo HEAD – Genève. Exhibitions : 08.03 - 20.05.2022. Do not carry your flag too low, Archizoom, EPFL.