Co-producing Publics: Questioning, Performative Acts, and Temporary Interventions
A workshop exploring how publics can be co-produced, shaped, and designed.
Drawing from the artistic-mediating practices of circuit sessions and Eva Chen, in this workshop, we will collectively explore how publics can be co-produced, shaped, and designed. We understand publics as a multifaceted concept that is not simply given, but can be constantly renegotiated. We aim to share experiences and collectively develop strategies to produce publics through questioning, performative acts, and temporary interventions. We experiment with simple means, such as textile and/or spatial elements, to create situations that enable forms of encounter, exchange, and community.
Together we ask: From which perspectives and with what responsibility do we act, and which practices include or exclude? What role does bodily and experiential knowledge play? How can we learn in dialogue with and from one another?
Event language: English.
Eva Chen (she/her) is a scenographer, art educator, and PhD student in the cooperative doctoral program in subject-specific education (arts) with University of Zurich (UZH) and College of Education (Pädagogische Hochschule Schwyz, PHSZ) in Switzerland. Her PhD project is situated in the broad field of Built Environment Education (BEE) and within the SNF-funded project “Building Together. Baukultur from the perspective of children and young people.” The research operates at the intersection of art education, mediation, and critical spatial practice, and explores how built spaces can be produced through collaborative, mediating, and artistic strategies.
As a traveling exchange series in Basel, the circuit sessions explore questions of what kind of knowledge shapes us and how. They travel to various locations, inviting several guests at each event to share their knowledge, perspectives, and practices, thereby opening a multi-perspective exploration. They address questions such as: How is knowledge produced, passed on, and evaluated? What kind of knowledge dominates society and our living together? What might individual and collective learning and unlearning look like?
Lea Kuhn (she/her) is a scenographer and art educator based in Basel, Switzerland. She is active in various educational contexts as well as in diverse collective projects in the fields of art, design, and education. Her practice is shaped by intersectional feminist discourses and is rooted in critical spatial practice. Her work focuses on aspects of knowledge production and embodiment, collective and discursive practices, as well as questions surrounding our living spaces and the ways we live together.
Flavia Spichtig (she/her) works across art education, sociocultural and artistic contexts, and at their intersections. She is interested in transdisciplinary projects that collectively conceive and shape living spaces through artistic approaches. She works on mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, visibility, representation, and care in culture and education. She is a co-founder of circuit sessions, a series of events exploring the production of knowledge and social conditioning.
Registrations open a month ahead
On-Site event info:
Open doors:
The venue will be open 30 minutes ahead. Please make sure to arrive at least 10 minutes early, as the workshop starts on time due to the hybrid format.
Venue address:
DOCK
Klybeckstrasse 29, 4005 Basel, Switzerland
Accessibility:
Please note that DOCK is only partly accessible by wheelchair: The toilets are not wheelchair-accessible, and there are no parking spots at the venue. We apologize for this exclusion and will make sure to do better in the future.
This event is part of the Engaging Publics hybrid workshop series exploring community-based research from facilitation, process-documentation, engaged writing, and more.
All workshops are free and open to all. Registrations will open a month ahead.
Except the on-site-only workshop in November, all events can be accessed online via Zoom or on site at DOCK cultural space in Basel, Switzerland.
June 20, 2026 | 3:30–6:30 pm CEST | Workshop | online and at DOCK Basel
Practices of Regard: Images, Memories, Words
with Darcy Alexandra (she/her), Visual Anthropologist, Filmmaker & Poet
Sep 5, 2026 | 3:30–6:30 pm CEST | Workshop | online and at DOCK Basel
Public Fictions: Methods for (World)Building Different Futures
with Ann Mbuti (she/her), Independent Writer
Sep 19, 2026 | 3:30–6:30 pm CEST | Workshop | online and at DOCK Basel
Working with the Archive: Reflecting on Collective Research
With Hybrid Project Space, Interdisciplinary Collective
Oct 17, 2026 | 3:30–6:30 pm CEST | Workshop | online and at DOCK Basel
Letters I Never Sent: Yearning in Science Fiction
With Sherida Kuffour(she/her), Art Director, Design Educator & Publisher
Oct 31, 2026 | 3:30–6:30 pm CET | Workshop | online and at DOCK Basel
The Language of Art: Celebrating Connection Through Doing Art
With Habib Afsar (he/none), Expressive Arts Practitioner, Relational Artist & Public Health Physician
Nov 07, 2026 | 3:30–6:30 pm CET | Workshop | on-site only at DOCK Basel
Co-Producing Publics: Questioning, Performative Acts, and Temporary Interventions
With Circuit Sessions Collective
and Eva Chen (she/her) Scenographer & Art Educator
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