Keynote speakers and Parallel events

Enlace: arquitectura / Enlace: foundation

Elisa Silva is the director and founder of Enlace Arquitectura, (est. 2007) a multidisciplinary professional practice in architecture, urban design and landscape architecture, and Enlace Foundation (est. 2017), an NGO that promotes environmental, cultural and educational programs of social inclusion and participatory design collaborations. Enlace’s work has been recognized in numerous design competitions, exhibitions and international biennials including the IX Iberoamerican design biennial 2024 Design and Public Action Award, Biennale di Venezia 2021, Chicago Architecture Biennial 2021, Arc en Rêve centre d’architecture in Bordeaux 2022, Centro Cultural Parque de España in Rosario Argentina 2022, the XI and VII Ibero American Architecture and Urban Design Biennial and the X Architecture Biennial in Chile. Elisa is the recipient of the Rome Prize, the Wheelright Fellowship, the Lucas Artist residency and the Afield Fellowship.

Website

About Elisa Silva

Elisa is an American-Venezuelan architect, with a Master of Architecture from Harvard GSD. Her practice and research challenge prejudiced narratives that support spatial inequality and mine resources to improve livelihoods and environments in territories such as self-built neighborhoods, the polluted Guaire River in Caracas Venezuela, and communal rural landscapes in Oaxaca Mexico. Elisa is the author of seminal publications on barrios and public space including CABA Cartography of the Caracas Barrios (FE 2015) and Pure Space: expanding the public sphere through public space transformations in Latin-American spontaneous settlements (Actar 2020). She is Associate Professor at Florida International University FIU and has also taught at Havrard University, Princeton University School of Architecture, the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Design at the University of Toronto, the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Simón Bolívar University.  

Studio Paola Viganò

Since 2015, StudioPaolaViganò works on the ecological and social transition of cities, landscapes and territories designing urban and territorial projects and realizing public spaces in Europe as the new public park in Dessel Nuclear Research center (Belgium), or Marie Janson Plein in Brussels, together with VVV. Studio has also won the competition for the realization of the municipal plan (PdCom) of Lugano (Switzerland), just completed and is consultant of the City of Geneva for its municipal plan (PdCom). Studio is finally coordinating the Strategic Scheme for the recovery of the Vesdre Valley (Belgium) after the flooding catastrophe of 2021 summer.
In 2019, her work has been exhibited at the Shenzen Biennale and in 2021 at the Venice Biennale. In 2022, she receives the Schelling Prize for Architectural Theory.

About Paola Viganò 

Paola Viganò (Sondrio, 29 May 1961), architect and urbanist, is Full Professor in Urban Theory and Urban Design at the EPFL (CH) where she directs the Habitat Research Center (HRC) and the Laboratory of Urbanism (Lab-U); she is also Professor at IUAV University of Venice (IT). She was the first woman to receive the Grand Prix de l’Urbanisme in France (2013), she is Doctor Honoris Causa by the UCLouvain in 2016 in the frame of “Utopia for our Time” and received the Flemish Culture Award for Architecture in 2017, and the Golden Medal for the Career of Milano Triennale in 2018. In 2022, she was appointed the Schelling Prize for Architectural Theory. In 2025, she received the Brussels Architecture Prize “Lifetime achievement Award”.

Together with Bernardo Secchi, she founded Studio (1990-2014) and later StudioPaolaViganò working on numerous projects and visions in Europe, including the Great Paris vision (published in La ville poreuse, 2011) and the Antwerp Structural plan (published in Territories of a New Modernity, 2006). 

In 2025 StudioPaolaViganò has been recompensated with the Brussels Architecture Prize for Public Spaces. Her recent projects deal with urban and territorial design and the design of public space. 

The Biopolitical Garden. Space, Life, Transition (Actar 2024) is her latest book.

Kick-off EURAU26 LATITUDES and Organizing committee International Symposium, 19-20 May 2025

LATITUDES: Awareness, Rúrí

Image:Rúrí

Rúrí_Archive - Endangered Waters. The installation is the representation of Iceland at the 50. Biennale di Venezia – 2003.

This lecture held in May 2025 marked the first in a series organized by Umeå School of Architecture within the framework of EURAU26 – European Research in Architecture and Urbanism Symposium. Organized in collaboration with UmArts and Umeå Art Campus, the event introduced the thematic framework of the symposium LATITUDES: Situated Reflections on Architectural Research.

Icelandic artist Rúrí was invited as keynote speaker for this kick-off meeting, setting the tone for the call for paper and the dialogues that will unfold during the EURAU26 Symposium in June 2026.

About Rúrí

Image:Rúrí

Over a career spanning more than five decades, Rúrí, one of Iceland’s preeminent artists, has centered her artistic practice on moral and existential questions that confront inhumanity, imperialism, capitalism, social injustice, and environmental destruction. A pioneer of performance art in Iceland, she has worked across a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, photography, film, multimedia installation, writing, and performance.

Her groundbreaking performance Golden Car (1974) was among the first works in Iceland to engage explicitly with political activism. She represented Iceland at the 2003 Venice Biennale with Archive – Endangered Waters, an interactive multimedia installation presenting visual and acoustic data from 52 waterfalls threatened by dam construction in the Icelandic Highlands — a work that brought her international recognition.