Irena LATEK

Project at the MaCI

April - May 2025

The notion of “city of refuge” (ville refuge) designates a reflection on urban hospitality and the idea of the city-territory as a place of protection for exiled people. For Jacques Derrida, the “refuge city” would be a new concept of City that could emerge, another right of asylum, another hospitality (Cosmopolites de tous les pays, encore un effort! - Cosmopolitans of all countries, another effort!). Contrary to the formula of “the refugee 1 This positioning draws on and refers to the conceptions of Jacques Rancière : acques Rancière, Le partage du sensible : esthétique et politique, Paris, Fabrique, Diffusion Les Belles lettres, 2000. 28 crisis”, our research-creation situates the problem on the level of the “city of arrival” and addresses the design of the space which could materialize such a figure. We are looking for significant forms of urbanity that are open to “the other”. Our theoretical approach is based on philosophy, law, urban anthropology, cinema, documentary cinema and contemporary art. It is parallel to an intense field survey (photographic, videographic and cartographic) carried out in three Montreal neighborhoods with a large immigrant population: Saint-Michel, Parc-Extension and Côte-des-Neiges. Students delve deeper into the notions of migration and passage with a view to broadening and diversifying forms of living together. During the course, spanning two terms, students carry out a Research by design project and a Thesis project - a professional synthesis of an experimental nature. The result is an unconventional set of documents, marked by instrumental exploration in architecture: photographic and cartographic works, short video films, architectural projects, textual production . This experimental nature is part of the research-creation of our medialabAU laboratory.

 We propose to organize at the MaCI (Maison de la Création et de l'Innovation) a series of events and activities in art, architecture and humanities around the themes of migration, reception, and urban solidarity and hospitality:

• Creation, installation and presentation in public exhibition of works on the city of refuge. The “City of Refuge” research-creation is carried out by Irena Latek and her team with students of the Master of Architecture as part of academic activities (“Research Projects”, Research Seminar and “Thesis Projects”) of the School of Architecture of the University of Montreal. Our project will involve exhibiting drawings, collages, photographs, creative maps and short video films produced by students from the University of Montreal. Everything is done in digital form. The installation which will showcase this work will be carried out by Irena Latek during her residency at MaCI. These works will be placed face to face with images of the Grenoble refuge city, captured by Irena Latek and students from Grenoble Alpes University, in collaboration with the AE&CC and Litt&Art laboratories.
•  A presentation-conference at the opening of the exhibition by Irena Latek.
• The writing of an article, publication in a magazine, as : HAS Humanities Arts Society, IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities, International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, La Furia Umana.
• A Multidisciplinary Study Day organized with the collaboration of teachers and researchers from the AE&CC research unit (ENSA Grenoble-UGA) and the University of Paris III by Irena Latek.

We will seek to generate dialogue with French lecturers on research-creation methods in architecture, visual arts and communication to a collaborative research-creation project on the theme of Grenoble's refuge city. The aim is to discuss research into issues such as human migration, global solidarity and the sustainability of cities and communities.