HELGA 2025 – Cross-border narrat­ives

Archi­tec­tural plan­ner and design histor­ian Jolanthe Kugler is chief curator and exhib­i­­tion curator at mudac, co-director of the RADDAR program, professor at the Politec­nico – Scuola di Design in Milan, and lecturer at HEAD in Geneva. She is a member of the Social Design Award jury and the Advis­ory Commit­tee of the Culture du Bâti found­a­­tion.

A gradu­ate archi­tect from EPFL (2013) and holder of an MAS in museo­­logy (2019). After five years in archi­tec­ture, she turned to sceno­­graphy and has been work­ing at mudac (Lausanne) since 2020, where she designs and coordin­ates sceno­­graph­ies.
She also takes on freel­ance projects, one of her most notable being her collab­or­a­­tion with Thierry Barbier-Mueller’s art and design collec­­tion, coordin­at­ing and produ­­cing the sceno­­graphy for the exhib­i­­tion A Chair and You, direc­ted by Robert Wilson.

Sofia Tapia Buchelli is a Mexican-Cana­­dian interior archi­tect and designer, currently explor­ing oppor­­tun­­it­ies and collab­or­a­­tions in cura­­tion, sceno­­graphy, and research. Her prac­­tice invest­ig­ates the inter­­­play between space and media, blend­ing theor­­et­ical inquiry with immer­s­ive, exper­­i­ence-driven outcomes. She began her academic jour­ney with a Bach­el­or’s degree in Indus­trial Design in Canada, while simul­tan­eously work­ing as an academic researcher. Her gradu­a­tion project—­­centered on preserving museum exper­­i­ences during the pandem­ic—earned the Wim Gilles Memorial Award and was featured in ACIDO Rocket and the Global Grad Show. Follow­ing this, Sofia worked as an exhib­i­­tion designer, contrib­ut­ing to a range of projects includ­ing tradeshow stands, archi­tec­tural product displays, and retail envir­on­­ments for major brands. She then pursued the MAIA program at HEAD – Genève, spend­ing a semester at the Royal Danish Academy in Copen­ha­­gen. During this time, she real­­ized built projects in Geneva and contrib­uted to inter­­n­a­­tional events such as the MMMAD Fest­ival in Madrid and the Interior Ecolo­­gies online symposium, where she presen­ted her thesis work, Impossible Memory Archi­tec­tures.

Pison­i–lab is a multidiscip­lin­ary design studio foun­­ded in 2023 by Karen Pisoni, designer and interior archi­tect. The studio focuses on sceno­­graphy, tempor­ary archi­tec­ture, and object design, with a partic­u­lar emphasis on sustain­­ab­il­ity and the life cycle of the elements used. Pison­i–lab’s main activ­it­ies include design­ing sceno­­graphy for cultural events, exhib­i­­tions, and public programs. The studio collab­or­ates with insti­tu­­tions, artists, and artis­ans to show­case their dormant stocks and offer them new tempor­ary visib­il­ity. It devel­ops modu­lar and poetic devices that can be adap­ted to differ­­ent contexts. Each project is designed as an immer­s­ive spatial exper­­i­ence that promotes the reuse, rental, or repur­­­pos­ing of exist­ing elements. The goal is to ques­­tion what is consumed and imagine how to extend the life of mater­­i­als and objects from exhib­i­­tions. This approach reflects a strong commit­­ment to sustain­­able design, where the ephem­eral becomes an oppor­­tun­­ity to test new forms of circu­lar­ity. The studio func­­tions as a labor­at­ory of ideas and prac­­tices, where innov­­a­­tion and visual sens­it­iv­ity come together.

Maria Clara Castioni is a sceno­­grapher and artist from Italian-speak­­ing Switzer­­­land, based between Geneva and Lugano. In her work, she explores the tension between the inten­­tional and the acci­dental, triggered by the dialogue between body and space. In partic­u­lar, she ques­­tions the scenic poten­­tial of urban spaces, notably with “Notti Future, ” a night­­time perform­ance among empty park­ing lots in the city center (2024), and with “Curtain up!, ” an urban sceno­­graphy work­shop in Lugano (2025). Maria Clara is artist-in-resid­ence at the Comédie de Genève for the period 2024–2027, work­ing in tandem with director Eléonore Bonah. She is co-author of the show “Lenz, ” a theat­rical adapt­a­­tion of Georg Büch­n­er’s novel, which ques­­tions the notion of interior and exter­­ior land­s­cape (2024). She holds degrees in DAMS (Alma Mater Studiorum, Bologna), interior design (HEAD, Geneva), and theater sceno­­graphy (La Manu­­fac­ture, Lausanne). She worked as a teach­ing assist­ant in the interior design program at HEAD — Geneva (2023–2024). As a sceno­­grapher, she has collab­or­ated with artists such as Math­­ilde Monnier, Daniele Pintaudi, and Virgile Dagneaux.

Trojans Collect­ive is a design studio foun­­ded in Geneva in 2019 by four multidiscip­lin­ary design­ers. Now led by Helena Bosch Vidal and Jessica-Maria Nassif, the studio devel­ops projects at the inter­­sec­­tion of graphic commu­n­ic­a­­tion and sceno­­graphy. The collect­ive was born out of the MA Espace et Commu­n­ic­a­­tion program at HEAD, where its members became teach­ers. This program, designed as a cross-border labor­at­ory for creat­ive discip­lines, has profoundly influ­enced the studi­o’s approach and its taste for dialogue between graphic and spatial prac­­tices. Nurtured by multi­cul­tural back­­­grounds and a collab­or­at­ive approach, Trojans Collect­ive designs exper­­i­ences in dialogue with its clients, part­n­ers, and audi­ences. Each project becomes a field of exper­­i­­ment­a­­tion where space, image, and narrat­ive come together to produce sens­it­ive and mean­ing­­ful forms. The studi­o’s name refers to a design capable of collab­or­at­ing with other discip­lines, hybrid­­iz­ing with them, and produ­­cing new languages. Since its creation, Trojans Collect­ive has collab­or­ated with cultural insti­tu­­tions, museums, fest­ivals, and inde­pend­ent actors, affirm­­ing its ambi­­tion to combine know-how and discip­lines, while main­­tain­ing an exper­­i­­mental and commit­ted stance.