Platform for Architectural Transfers in the Indian Ocean rim
About  |  

UPCOMING
CONVERSATION


Architecture & Media Cultures
11th September 2025
Thursday 5.30 pm IST
Respondent: Kathleen James Chakraborty (University College Dublin)
<Registration Link>




The Funambulist: Politics of Space and Bodies

Léopold Lambert & Shivangi Mariam Raj (The Funambulist)




The Funambulist was created as a blog in 2010, following an editorial line that tried to establish the various complicities of architecture with various regimes of oppression, in particular settler colonialism. In 2013, it was coupled with a podcast. In August 2015, the first issue of The Funambulist magazine was launched and, ten years later, 61 issues have been published. It is a print and online, trilingual (English, French, Spanish) magazine dedicated to the politics of space and bodies, and the cultivation of internationalist solidarities between anticolonial, antiracist, queer, and feminist struggles. Although not an architectural publication, its insistence on spatial politics make it relevant in architectural discourse and education, at a moment when new generations of architects refuse the complicities the discipline forces onto them. In this short presentation, editor Léopold Lambert and head of communications Shivangi Mariam Raj will present both the magazine's politics of contents and its politics of production.


Participants are warmly invited to watch  Léopold’s ‘When the walls tighten on you’ and read  The Funambulist no. 45 ahead of the Conversation.




Content in Practice
Ruturaj Parikh & Maanasi Hattangadi (MATTER)






MATTER was founded as an interdisciplinary practice exploring the interface between content and architecture to influence the direction of professional discourse on architecture in India. In this process, the model for an open, inclusive, engaging practice emerged, which deals with discourse through pragmatic, open-source formats where issues of contemporary practice in India are discussed in an attempt to influence the directions and positions of practice. This, in turn, nourishes MATTER and our work as architects. The presentation will focus on projects at the interface of content and architecture.



PAST
SESSIONS


PATIO Conversation No. 13 | Priya Joseph & Vishvesh Kandolkar

PATIO Conversation No. 12 | Sarah Melsens, Ishita Shah & Pamudu Tennakoon
PATIO Conversation No. 11 |
Madhumati A., Zahra Yasmoon & Dipti Shukla
PATIO Conversation No. 10 | Nicholas Bill & Chee Kien Lai

PATIO Conversation No. 09 |
Swati Chattopadhyay & 
Megha Chand Inglis
PATIO Conversation No. 08 | Labib Hossain & Javairia Shahid
PATIO Conversation No. 07 |  Shaikhah Ali Alsalhi & 
Ali Javid     
PATIO Conversation No. 06 | Sarover Zaidi & Saniya Siddiqui
PATIO Conversation No. 05 | Mehwish Abid & Johann Peiris 
PATIO Conversation No. 04 | Meenakshi Jain & Richa Shah       
           
PATIO Conversation No. 03 | Anthony Wako & Dhaval Chauhan
PATIO Conversation No. 02 | Kairavi Maniar & Esa Shaikh
PATIO Conversations No. 01 | Chetan Sahasrabudhe & Ashmita Gupta
 







PATIO
CONVERSATIONS

PATIO Conversations are open to all; we aim to meet once a month, and scholars get an opportunity to share their work in progress. These presentations may be on a topic of their choice, which may relate to one or more of PATIO’s thematic umbrellas, or even critically reconsider and reconfigure our definition of particular themes. Participants may include independent scholars, Master's students, or aspiring PhD students as well as postdoctoral researchers who can contribute as speakers or choose to be an active part of the audience. Each such conversation foregrounds two scholars presenting their work for 20 minutes, followed by feedback from relevant respondents invited by the PATIO team in relation to the topic, and finally opening the discussion out to the larger audience. As such, PATIO Conversations offers a platform for critical dialogue while both disseminating recently completed work and providing mentorship to aspirant researchers, including potential PhD candidates. These sessions provide researchers with the resources to further their work related to the state of the field by involving active experts and engaging with current bodies of relevant work, published or otherwise. 
PATIO Conversations is directed by Saptarshi Sanyal and Sarah Melsens with the help of Thematic directors and Coordinators.