The past few years have witnessed a proliferation of transgressive manifestations in the architectural field, echoing a propensity to dismiss rules and norms in many social and political circumstances unfolding around us. Transgression was, however, always part of our world and of our way of functioning, presenting a centrifugal force opposing the regulating laws of order – a quest of liberty versus the quest of harmony. The very act of inhabiting a given space might be understood as an act of transgression. Why, then, dedicate a conference to this theme? Certainly, the playing and bargaining with normativity is a constant of life as such, but what if the increasing number of diverse transgressive stances is the response to an era threatened by crises and agitated by radical mutations? And what if this troubled climate could be understood as the consequence of modernity’s will to embrace the world in its entirety, an ambitious project that ultimately engendered  control and exclusion?

By formulating these questions, the conference invites us to reflect on transgression – as concept, positioning and posture – as a crucial element at the core of an epistemology in the making.

The theme of this conference builds up on an on-going project, which explores since 2017 transgression in the small circle of ENSA Bretagne (and its surroundings) and in a larger circle of international scholars.

The conference will be held online.

The detailed program is now online here and can be downloaded here: Transgression conference program.  

There are no registration fees, but those who want to attend the conference must fill in the form following this link:
https://forms.gle/vnhMBLN7AuZVeCen9.