house of differences

On the evening of Friday 9th and afternoon of Saturday 10th of May, in connection with the exhibition 'Fantasizing Design: Phyllis Birkby Builds Lesbian Feminist Architecture' curated by @mc_overholt and @sjvider , the soft resistance collective will organize two workshops at the @centerforarch experimenting with collective fantasy drawing as a methodology. In these workshops, participants will consider how drawing can be used to represent seemingly intangible daily practices of homemaking—from traces of labor and untold memories to emotions and dreams. We will also reflect on how a sense of home can extend beyond strictly domestic spaces, encompassing a neighbourhood, an object, or a ritual.  How can everyday practices of homemaking become an act of resilience, refusal, and resistance for those who refuse heteronormative social struttures? What if displacement was not just seen as an exceptional event but as a constant condition and negotiation? These questions will be addressed in the introduction of the research and collective living project by @qnrrrrrr and @rssgcm , followed by the drawing session and discussion. The event will be accompanied by tea and sweets and conclude with a guided tour of the exhibition by the curators. To create a more intimate and comfortable environment, capacity for each event is limited to 18 people and RSVP is required. More information, as well as a detailed schedule and registration link can be found at the links in bio

On the 18th and 19th of April, we'll be organizing a couple of events in Philadelphia, in collaboration with @pennlgbt and @patatgiovannisroom Friday 18th: introduction of the research and collective living project by @qnrrrrrr and @rssgcm and a presentation titled 'sueño con una casa que no existe' on the ceramic work of @tosco.pa . This will be followed by a screening of 'a house of differences' (2025/14 min), introduced by @filemon.ba and of ‘Dragking Highway’ (2024/19 min) a short film on the spaces of transfemme hitchhiking by @gamerjeannedielman . The event will take place at the UPenn LGBT Center (3907 Spruce St.) between 2PM and 4PM Saturday 19th: collective reading of 'the queer beings and their friends' and discussion with authors Giacomo Rossi and Qianer Zhu. The reading will be held at Giovanni’s Room (345 S 12th St.) between 6PM and 7:30PM.

Graduate Program in Media + Modernity | Princeton University   soft resistance collective "house of differences — making home in displacement” [Responses by Janus Lafontaine Carboni, and NOMAS representatives Favor Idika, Jayda Muhammad] Tuesday, April 15, 2025 @5pm ET N202 Second Floor Gallery (School of Architecture) DINNER DINNER DINNER — Join us for a special event in the Media + Modernity Lecture Series, presented in collaboration with Princeton NOMAS. Held in the second-floor gallery, this gathering will feature a shared dinner in a more convivial setting designed to encourage conversation and exchange. Practices of queer homemaking in displacement can act as resistance against hetero-patriarchal norms, thereby critiquing power structures, and committing to alternative modes of living. In conversation with historical and contemporary queer communes and individuals living in China, Italy, and the diaspora, our research documented memories, labor, and intangible layers of homemaking. Testing these strategies at a vacant villa of ETH Zurich, we transformed the institutional space into a domestic one by queering space and furniture. This talk will offer insight into both the research methodologies and the collective living practice, presented through a fiction book and a short film.   soft resistance collective works at the intersection of art and architecture. Through collective drawing, writing, filmmaking, and space-making, they frame the daily acts of displaced queer bodies as conscious homemaking strategies. For them, softness and queerness are political means to envision alternatives to the normative home.

Opening the event series in Zürich, Alex Auris @alexauris organised an internal workshop for the qswg network, in which we shared and reflected on our personal and academic relation to queerness, architecture, and language(s). Gracias Alex for your lecture, your questions and making us reflect and share with each other! Thanks to the @house.of.differences for hosting us!

A large part of our programme took place in a villa owned by ETH that was temporarily inhabited by the Chair of Affective Architectures (Professor An Fonteyne, ETH) as work spaces for their «Outcasts» thesis studio and the free Master Thesis «making home in dis-place-m•e•a•n•t» by Qianer Zhu @qnrrrrrr and Giacomo Rossi @rssgcm . In their project, Qianer and Giacomo «investigate displacement as an intrinsic part of the queer experience and [ask] how homemaking for displaced queer bodies can be a conscious act of resistance and resilience». This thesis was supervised and enabled by Prof. An Fonteyne (ETH), Prof. S. E. Eisterer (Princeton University), and Prof. Menna Agha (Carleton University). The collective living project ‘house of differences’ @house.of.differences emerged due to this investigation. During our event series, our hosts Qianer and Giacomo and Filo @filemon.ba made sure we had a home to live, chat, explore, exchange, eat, learn, brainstorm, drink, critique, question, rest, … Thank you for creating and sharing your queer home with us!

Starting from our own personal trajectories, and in conversation with historical and contemporary queer communes and individuals living in China, Italy, and the diaspora, we appropriated a soon-to-be-sold ETH villa on Voltastrasse. By queering the use of space and office furniture, we transformed the institutional setting into a domestic one. This process was first presented in an exhibition at ETH between December 2024 and January 2025. For those queer bodies that are displaced because of their resistance to normative expectations, how can architecture support a sense of respite and inhabitation? What does the making of home look like for them? How do they enact resistance and resilience through the process of homemaking? We want to express our gratitude to those who supported us both in Zurich and elsewhere. First, to An, S.E. @s.e.eisterer , and Menna @agha_menna , as well as Els @elsvis and Galaad @galaadvandaele , for your constant guidance and generous support throughout the journey. Thanks for creating a space where our constantly evolving thoughts could settle for a time, as well as sitting with us in many long conversations to discuss what a queer architecture methodology can be. Thank you to Torsten @torstenlange79 , Demetra @demetravg , Shen @he_shen , Lisa @louisamailand and the entire @queerspaceworkinggroup for your willingness to take part in our inhabitation and for your generosity in sharing your personal stories. Our endless gratitude and love go to @filemon.ba , for their constant presence has been an anchor of this project. An incredible thank you also goes to our friends @_emkatarina , @_airas_ , @mna.lec , Shriya, @martinion.khol , @laura.brux , @senga_g , and many more, who have given us so much care throughout the journey, as well as duvets, bowls, and meals. Lastly, thank you to everyone who has shared their homemaking knowledge with us. This thesis exists because of you. Keep posted, there are more chapters to come! xx

"Inspired by their travels and their conversation with other collectively-living queer beings from the city of pearls, they decided to make a communal closet. Transforming one of the most beautiful rooms and its terrace, they laid out some shelves and mirrors from the old institution, and hung two curtains in the corners so that some shy friends could get changed behind them. They set up some poles with strings to dry clothes on the terrace and put out an armchair to enjoy the sun. All of this made the daily activity of dressing more important. As their friend Morgan said: “Our glamour is not superfluous to changing the current order, it is instrumental.” " excerpt from 'the queer beings and their friends', a fiction book which we've been working on :)

slippers at home 💖

in the shared sleeping room 🦋

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in the sleeping niche 🌱🌿