HELGA 2025 – Cross-border narratives
Swiss Professional Meeting for Scenography and Spatial Communication
Friday 14 November 1pm-9:30pm |
mudac – Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, Plateforme 10 Place de la Gare 17, Lausanne, Switzerland Google Maps Registration opens in July |
Theme 2025: Cross-border narratives
HELGA 2025 invites us to examine the “border” as a narrative device in scenography. Inspired by the concept of “cultural border-crossing”, participants will consider borders as complex, interdependent cultural and social constructs. Crossing these boundaries becomes a creative act at the heart of culture that is understood as dynamic, relational and performative.
We welcome diverse forms of transgression or blurring of boundaries: between reality and fiction; among artistic disciplines; between audience and space; between object and audience. Equally intriguing are the sometimes subtle dividing lines between different institutional rationales or the professional self-perception of practitioners.
Through keynote talks by guest speakers, a collective exercise, sharing of your scenographic project experiences and mentorship pairings between professionals and students, HELGA 2025 aims to be a space for openness, experimentation and exchange of ideas. To make this day a success, we need your involvement – hence this call for papers.
Call for papers: Case Studies
To make this day a success, we are launching a call for papers and are looking forward to your participation.
Have you recently pushed beyond your professional limits and gained valuable new experiences worth sharing? Perhaps an unusual collaboration or a content-challenging encounter? Something that positively shifted your professional outlook and led you to redefine your own practice? Do you have a project that questions, pushes, dissolves or redefines existing boundaries, fitting perfectly with HELGA 2025’s theme?
If your approach pushes established boundaries, questions traditional frameworks or opens up new professional perspectives, we’d be delighted if you presented it briefly at HELGA. This call is also open to students at Swiss universities.
About HELGA
Created in 2012 as an exchange platform for the Swiss scenography community, HELGA has since become a key forum and meeting point for professionals in scenography and spatial communication.
After events in Lucerne (2012–2014), Zurich (2015–2017), Basel (2018–2021) and again Lucerne (2022–2024), HELGA will for the first time take place in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The host for 2025–2027 will be mudac in Lausanne, emphasising scenography’s importance for its own exhibition activities and fostering exchanges among professionals across linguistic borders.
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