Working at the intersection of architecture and other fields related to spatial culture, LINA is a Europe-wide network of institutions. Its fellowship programme promotes emerging thinkers and practitioners who would address the environmental crisis and its ethical and social implications. In this conversation, six LINA fellows — Johanna Musch, Rajna Avramova, Océane Ragoucy, E+D, and wit(h)nessing — share their projects and reflections on exploring coexistence.

This article is one of a series featuring reflections from the current cohort of LINA Fellows. You can read more from the other fellows here and here, and learn more about the LINA community here.

KOOZ How do you approach the act of coexistence within your practice?

JOHANNA MUSCH By observing and unveiling the weaving of temporalities of humans and other-than-humans in a damaged environment and proposing a beyond-human temporal framework.

RAJNA AVRAMOVA Viewing architecture from a minor position implies the existence of a major position. However, instead of direct opposition, minor architectures coexist and emerge within the framework of major powers, making their relationship relentlessly dynamic and relational.

OCÉANE RAGOUCYCoexistence is an integral part of my work, first and foremost because my practice is multiple and polymorphous. As an architect, curator, editor and teacher — all activities that come under the heading of criticism — I deploy a multiplicity of activities that coexist and seem to testify to a way of working and thinking that is particular to our current epoch.

E+D Coming from a sociopolitical context where social sustainability still appears to be more pressing than environmental sustainability, our projects emphasise the necessity for a more cohesive human coexistence. This is reflected in the typologies of our projects: a forum, a museum, and four cultural centres; we aim to create and maintain spaces of togetherness.

WIT[H]NESSING As our platform’s name implies, we propose becoming radically aware of any Other within each context — to witness together, to wit(h)ness. This entails a mode of perception and engagement within the world, wherein humans are not isolated from surrounding networks. Leading to co-creation, outcomes become the result of complex relational interactions between various actors, human and nonhuman.

KOOZ Invisible Jobs in the city tell us about the silent coexistences which enable our cities to operate. How do these concealed jobs reflect our habits and concerns as a species?

OCÉANE RAGOUCY For a long time now, I have been interested in what we don't see, what we try to hide, what escapes the visible, what is not meant to be represented. I find these issues interesting in many fields, particularly photography, architecture and Urbanism. What exists out of frame, what remains off-screen? As part of an inquiry into "jobs that dig", after interviewing an archaeologist, a gardener and a psychiatrist (a specialist in memory lapses), I interviewed one of the gravediggers at Paris's best-known cemetery, the Père Lachaise. He told me about his daily routine, his work and his techniques. He talked about what he does all day and how he feels about what he does, as famous interviewer Studs Terkel would have said. This encounter was so fascinating that it made me want to give a hearing to the voices of other personalities who often fly under the radar of the media, and who work in the very heart of cities to maintain, repair and take care of things that we coexist with, but rarely get to know. The original idea was to paint a portrait of Paris through the eyes of those who work behind the scenes.

KOOZ From the invisible to the minor, the project The Minor and its Spatialities draws on Jill Stoner’s definition of minor architectures as “simultaneously insignificant and subversively instrumental” actions that “alter and dematerialize the constructed world”, to embrace space in its full potential. How can the minor be an active tool to shape a more generous architectural practice which embraces the coexistence of a multitude of realities and perspectives?

RAJNA AVRAMOVA Jill Stoner's exploration of minor architectures offers various definitions of them. These are necessary due to their multiple nature and also because their subversive force lies therein. The transformative power of minor architectures as an active tool for a more generous architectural practice nowadays stems from this differentiating power. They reveal spaces and spatialities that deal with the insignificant, the personal, the intimate, and the everyday. As Cindi Katz elaborates in Minor Theory, this perspective does not ignore alternative embodied, positioned, and sensual conditions, and it is in these conditions that things get messy. Messiness, a state unknown to the dominant canon of architectural production, is a kind of subversive concept that allows minor architecture to dismantle major architecture's myths, making it a powerful tool today.

KOOZ Further countering and questioning our reliance on the visible and the tangible, Objects of the Encounter asks us to think with and through uncertainty. How can such a shift foster a recasting of human subjectivity, aesthetics and ethics?

WIT[H]NESSING The title refers to Deleuzian theory, which suggests that the genesis of thinking does not stem from objects of recognition, but rather from objects of encounter that lack the comfort of familiarity found in the former. Remaining with uncertainty is crucial in a world where once-cherished beliefs are gradually weakening and collapsing, even if they persist. In contrast to hegemonically declared systems and actualised realities, Objects of the Encounter proposes going into the transformative realm of affective encounters with overlooked, neglected, or even repressed agents. Such engagement challenges the notion of a fixed, autonomous self and instead encourages a view of subjectivity as fluid, dispersed, and relational shaped by our interactions with others and the environment.

KOOZ The global climate crisis is the fruit of the established and singular capitalist criteria of performance and efficiency, which prioritises instantaneity over long-term considerations. In this context, The Missing Dimension advocates that a true coexistence with our planet can only be regained by aligning with the natural pace of the living world. Is there such a thing as‘one pace’— and if so, how can we listen to it more attentively?

JOHANNA MUSCH The Missing Dimension invites to engage with other temporalities shared among other-than-human worlds, of plants, animals, geology, and natural forces, but also between humans from different cultures and times. The predominance of human-centric temporal framework in city-making tends to silence other scales and alternative ways to measure or perceive time. This research aims to reposition humans within a system of coexistence and contingency and think beyond nature and culture as presented by Philippe Descola in his eponymous book. I do not believe that there is such a thing as “one pace” with which we have to synchronise, but rather a diversity of rhythms we have to acknowledge and listen to. Currently, my research is focusing on regenerative approaches trying to navigate the complexity of working with different time regimes which have been often altered by human activities and climate change (which may have also affected our metrics of time).

KOOZ Beyond nurturing greater coexistence with species and realities which inhabit our present, it's important to foster a greater co-existence with our built environment, especially in terms of what we decide to keep and what to demolish. This means expanding our gaze beyond those which are historically charged sites to the ordinary acknowledging the immense material fluxes that they encapsulate. How can memory be deployed to ensure we expand the value of our built environment from the historical to the environmental?

E+D In our work, we have defined valuable memoryscapes as spatial repositories of collective memory. To imbue environmental contexts devoid of historical significance with meaning, we must intertwine environments with cultural narratives and social identities, allowing them to become entrenched in collective memory as indispensable backdrops. Nothing fortifies this connection more than lived experiences. Therefore, we require strategies to recognise, preserve, and expand places of memory in infra-ordinary spaces — whether built or unbuilt — followed by strategies to integrate them meaningfully into everyday life. Well-designed spaces can facilitate and nurture this integration, underscoring why architectural projects should always be conceptualised as processes wherein space gains meaning over time. Such spaces would play a pivotal role in shaping the content, interpretation, and transmission of memories within a society, consequently amplifying their worth and safeguarding them against demolition.

Bios

E+D are Ena Kukić and Dinko Jelečević, architectural designers and researchers from Sarajevo who live and work in Graz. Their work in architecture explores existing spatial fragments of collective memory and creates new ones in both practice and theory. Apart from their teamwork, Ena also teaches design principles and model-making at the University in Graz and is writing a Ph.D. on memorial architecture, while Dinko creates 3D visualisations as a freelancer and works in an office. Their accolades include the prestigious EU Mies Young Talent Award, finalist recognition at the Archiprix Biennale, two National Collegium Artisticum awards, and numerous prizes in public competitions.

Johanna Musch is a social designer, researcher, digital and cultural project practitioner based in Pantin. For several years, she has developed digital content and mediation tools for institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo and the Fondation Cartier, and later taught Digital Strategies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle. In parallel, she co-founded the multidisciplinary spatial practice collective Umarell where she advocates for spatial justice through actions directed to bring out vernacular knowledge, helping users recognise their own agencies. In her practice, she likes to hybridise architecture with other fields including: journalistic investigation, audio-recording, artistic intervention, writing and speculative design.

Océane Ragoucy is an architect, curator and consultant based between Paris and Athens. With a strategic and engaged practice in architecture, art and ecology, she explores the modes of production of architecture, the margins, the backstage of cities and the narratives of ecological issues. With a background in cinema, digital arts and media, she is an architect and a graduate of SPEAP, Bruno Latour's experimental program in art and politics. She has been an associate lecturer at ENSA Paris-Malaquais since 2022 and a thesis director at ENSCI-Les Ateliers since 2021.

Rajna Avramova is an architect based in Vienna. Throughout her work in different architectural offices, she has gained experience in working on projects ranging in scale and complexity. Currently, she’s involved in planning the renovation of the social housing complexes by the city of Vienna, which allows to address seemingly insignificant and overlooked issues in the field. Her research focuses mainly on understanding the different power dynamics in architecture and their role in the production of space.

wit[h]nessing is a platform for transdisciplinary artistic research founded by Tatuli Japoshvili and Giga Tsikarishvili in 2023 that nurtures cultural, social and environmental ecologies to reinvent new ways of co-existing. Tatuli Japoshvili is a writer in cultural criticism, a researcher in visual culture, and an artist. Her research and artistic practice revolve around the intersections between aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and the notion of the feminine. Giga Tsikarishvili is a transdisciplinary practitioner focusing on artistic research whose work delves into the intricate connections between various subjects, encompassing both human and non-human realms.

Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.