Assembly is a scenography created for Swissnex during Climate Week NYC, the world’s largest climate festival. Swissnex is the Swiss global network for education, research, and innovation, connecting Swiss and international communities through cultural and intellectual exchange. For three days, Swissnex brought together voices from the private sector, research, art, and policy at Performance Space in New York’s East Village for collective thinking and dialogue around climate action.

The scenography was conceived around scaffolding – one of the most recognizable elements of New York’s urban landscape. Few structures are as omnipresent, versatile, and paradoxical – at once temporary and permanent, protective and obstructive, invisible and iconic. Scaffolding was reimagined not only as a tool of construction, but as a dispositive for encounter and collective reflection and transformed into a stage for new forms of gathering, dialogue, and exchange. The design followed a zero-waste approach : the scaffolding structures that were assembled for the event, were disassembled at the end and all materials returned to their origin.

The design drew on the morphology of the Swiss Alpine landscape, creating an immersive installation through structure, image, and spatial experience. Scaffolding was transformed into three inhabitable structures symbolizing Swiss mountains, translating their topography into an architectural language of levels and elevations. Visitors were invited to use the lower levels for seating, while above large LED screens displayed moving images of the Swiss landscape, creating a living topography.

Scenography

Head of Department: Javier Fernández Contreras
Deputy Head: Valentina De Luigi
Project Leader: Alexandra Miskufova
Project Assistant: Valentin Calame

HEAD students: Axelle Joyau, Susan Haro, Elise Orange, Bryan Jefferson Reyes, Oriane Oulevey, Apolline Schumacher

Performance Space team

Production Manager: Marcelline Mandeng Nken
Technical Director: Adrienne Swan
Video Designer: Robin Abraham Ediger-Seto