Dezeen School Shows: an installation influenced by Virginia Woolf's iconic essay A Room of One's Own is among the projects from HEAD – Geneva School of Art and Design.

Also featured is a project investigating uses of mycelium and an installation exploring queer identities.

HEAD Geneva School of Art and Design

Institution: HEAD Geneva School of Art and Design
School: HEAD Geneva School of Art and Design
Course: Master Space and Communication: Design Installation
Tutors: Rosario Hurtado and Arno Mathies (project directors), Rita Hajj, Alexandra Midal, Emma Pflieger, Dominic Robson, Noam Toran (tutors) and Eloïse Vo and Martin Zambaz (assistants)

School statement:

"The Master Space and Communication: Design Installation course is an interdisciplinary programme investigating new practices for design. Through enquiry-driven practices, our students explore the intersections of objects, film, performance, media and space to generate narrative and immersive installations.

"Our full-time, two-year graduate programme is structured across multiple studio projects, workshops and external commissions which traverse a range of design disciplines and contexts. This expanded approach to design and the diverse methods and processes the course teaches, drives projects that engage with contemporary issues including the social, political and environmental.

"By creating original projects and methodologies, students develop distinct forms of practice and produce new design languages. And by working with space as a means for experimental investigations and critical explorations, our students are able to produce ambitious design installations for their graduation project.

"The course is dedicated to nurturing personal approaches and perspectives for interacting with the world through design. The course promotes social exchange, collaboration and interactivity as the basis for practice-led research. In doing so, it successfully prepares its graduates for futures working in design and media, scenography, exhibitions, design installations and public or retail environments.

"Alumni work for commercial companies, institutions and in education, as well as setting up their own design collectives such as Collectif Kimera, Trojans Collective, Studio Abricot, Studio Tech and Studio PfliegerFoegle or dedicate to their individual practice in design and art."

Voyager by Gabriella Luchetta Dos Santos

"The installation Voyager constructs a sonic and visual mythology centred around the moon, tethered to the concept of queer temporality – a framework developed by scholars to explore how queer lives often unfold outside normative expectations.

"For someone undergoing a gender transition, for example, the experience can bring a profound redefinition of self.

"At the same time, living outside adult life milestones can create a sense of dissonance, of being out of sync with dominant temporal norms.

"Yet it is precisely within this misalignment that possibilities open up: to imagine futures and societies that defy the norm."

Student: Gabriella Luchetta Dos Santos
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Dominic Robson
Email: luchgabriela[at]gmail.com

Fragments Alive by Laurène Allard

"The installation Fragments Alive is conceived as a cartography of gesture. A collection of fragile, transformed territories, shaped by the passage of time.

"Each piece tells a cycle: between appearance, disappearance and rebirth. Everything responds to one another.

"Materials are recycled, spaces engage in dialogue. Allard seeks a connection, a balance and a way to reveal what is not immediately visible.

"This project is an invitation to slow down, see differently and hear what matter whispers to us – when we give it time."

Student: Laurène Allard
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Rita Hajj
Email: laurene.allard.contact[at]gmail.com

Aucèu by Léa Campos

"Aucèu is an immersive triptych film installation that plays with the limits of frame and space, seeking to redefine them.

"The audience is invited to be active, observing the interactions between the different screens.

"Using a range of media, this project brings to life childhood memories of bird species that have had a profound impact on Léa Campos.

"The aim is to bring back to life these presences that have now disappeared, in response to the ecological crisis. Through dance, costume, image, sound and writing."

Student: Léa Campos
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Emma Pflieger
Email: leacampos2901[at]gmail.com

Toutes Les Bestioles Façonnent Une Chair Commune by Lou Revel

"Toutes Les Bestioles Façonnent Une Chair Commune explores a design practice in collaboration with mycelium, the living, underground network of fungi.

"Neither a resource to exploit nor a simple metaphor, mycelium is approached here as a living partner, with its own rhythms, logics and needs.

"This project is rooted in a logic of reciprocity. In collaboration with Floyd Sarria, biologist and mushroom grower, waste is collected from his fungal production for my experiments. The aim is not to 'use' the living, but to compose with it, respecting its dynamics."

Student: Lou Revel
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Noam Toran
Email: revslou[at]gmail.com

Ngog Lituba: The Mountain Who Fell From The Sky by Mac-Arthur Sohna

"This project reinterprets the myth of a sacred Cameroonian's mountain Ngog Lituba as a living extraterrestrial archive, to counter the colonial imposition of Christianity and reactivate the cosmic knowledge systems of African traditions.

"Ngog Lituba: The Mountain Who Fell From The Sky reimagines its origin by weaving together myth and science: born from an asteroid impact, the mountain becomes a spacecraft from Sirius carrying a spider-like entity that shared cosmic wisdom with our ancestors.

"In this reframing, Ngog Lituba is transformed into a living archive, demonstrating that these systems of belief resist and endure through time."

Student: Mac-Arthur Sohna
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Noam Toran
Email: arthur.sohnaa[at]gmail.com

Middle Ground by Maxime Heta

"Middle Ground is a project exploring liminal spaces, those undefined, in-between places that resist clear categorisation, through a hybrid form of documentary and fiction film, accompanied by an installation.

"The concept draws inspiration from a phenomenon observed by Maxime Heta in Kosovo, where streets bear official names, yet these are rarely used.

"Since the war, names have changed repeatedly, often reflecting shifts in political power. As a result, people navigate using familiar landmarks rather than formal addresses.

"Places become relational, defined by context rather than fixed identity."

Student: Maxime Heta
Course: heta.maxime[at]gmail.com
Tutor: Noam Toran
Email: heta.maxime[at]gmail.com

Let's Make My Memories Leave Forever by Olivia Schalk

"This project presents five short films that speak about memory, specific memories and drifting thoughts on time.

"These words float within images stripped of meaning, some of which are altered by analog distortion devices.

"This installation stems from an earlier project that questioned the various ways of capturing reality (for example, cameras, photos, videos) as being counterfeits of reality.

"Visual reflections like mirrors, water reflections and windows for example served as a medium to approach this idea of imitation, like a copy of reality, a glance backward and a point of view."

Student: Olivia Schalk
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Dominic Robson
Email: olivia.schalk[at]gmail.com

Interstitial Dreamscapes by Nguveren Ahua

"Interstitial Dreamscapes by Nguveren Ahua is an installation that uses fiction, photography and sound to explore themes of belonging, identity and healing through storytelling.

"It began with the idea of how to use fiction with fantastical elements as a means to process fractured identities and seek reconciliation with and from our past, present and future selves."

Student: Nguveren Ahua
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Rita Hajj
Email: nt.ahua[at]gmail.com

Traces of Things That Almost Died by Sunwoo Lee

"This installation explores the remnants of time – traces that have nearly disappeared but continue to linger in fragile and incomplete forms.

"A recording is always of a time that has passed, but if that recording keeps returning, alive again, is it still absent, or somehow present?

"The tape is cut to a specific length and connected into a loop, allowing a fixed span of time to repeat endlessly.

"The system captures not only intentional voices, but also ambient sounds, background noise and subtle vibrations, suggesting that space is not passive but a site where sound accumulates and resonates."

Student: Sunwoo Lee
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Dominic Robson
Email: eesw618[at]gmail.com

My Grandfather's Living Room: A Confined Universe by Marta Córdoba Ruiz

"This project is an immersive and interactive installation that recreates my grandfather's real living room.

"Somewhere between scenography, intimate memory and social critique, this project is a gesture of love and recognition, not only toward my grandfather, but toward a whole generation of elderly people isolated from today's world.

"Visitors are invited to step into the space, sit, touch, listen – there's no fixed path. The television, the vinyl player, the telephone, the objects on the table: all are elements of a life waiting to be pieced together.

"It is a space that asks for time, like elderly people do."

Student: Marta Córdoba Ruiz
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Arno Mathies
Email: marta_93cr[at]hotmail.com

A Desk of One's Own by Aurora Mesot

"A Desk of One's Own is an evolving installation that reclaims the space for women to think, create and write history – starting from their own perspective.

"It is both poetic and political. Through this piece, Mesot explores how knowledge, identity and voice are shaped in spaces traditionally denied to women.

"This desk is not just a functional object; it is a site of resistance, learning and shared memory.

"The work draws its name from Virginia Woolf's iconic essay 'A Room of One's Own' yet reinterprets her call: not just to write as a woman, but to take space as a woman."

Student: Aurora Mesot
Course: Diploma project
Tutor: Emma Pflieger
Email: auroramesot[at]gmail.com

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and HEAD Geneva School of Art and Design. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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