Talk, Talk, Talk

Talk, Talk, Talk, the seventh Lisbon Architecture Triennale’s conference series, returns to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation on October 29, 30, and 31. Bringing together figures from architecture, science and activism, this edition’s public programme delves into weight, the central element of the Lisbon Triennale 2025—curated by John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, Territorial Agency and titled How heavy is a city?—and its three core exhibitions: Spectres, Fluxes and Lighter.

Curated by Filipa Ramos, the three days of debate open dialogues between different disciplines, from geography and history to environmental studies, design, and art, exploring architecture as a tool through which we think, mend and remake both the social orders we inhabit and the spatial arrangements that hold them. 

As Filipa Ramos argues, “Weight is one of the largest elephants in this cumbersome, deranged and dystopic room called the Anthropocene, which humanity created for itself and others. It is unquestionable that there has been a global and massive redistribution of weight upon the surface of the Earth, caused by the all the materials that have been, and continue to be, extracted, mined, transformed, produced, repurposed and rearranged by and for all sorts of human activities.” 

An international group of thinkers including Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari (Architects for Gaza), Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation), Eyal Weizman (Forensic Architecture), Supawut Boonmahathanakorn (JaiBaan Studio), Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda (amid.cero9), Kathryn Yusoff, Kenny Cupers, Michael Marder, and Tiago Patatas will discuss how notions of weight and pressure shape spaces and condition human and more-than-human infrastructures, environments and lives.

The three sessions, each related to one of the main thought-exhibitions of the Lisbon Triennale (Spectres, Fluxes and Lighter), open debates among contemporary spatial practitioners, connecting politics and ecology with ideas of social and environmental justice. Through focused case studies and wide-ranging reflections, they create a forum for layered and urgent exchanges about our present-future.

e-flux will livestream the presentations here. 

Spectres—Empire and Extractivism 
Wednesday, October 29, 6pm GMT (2pm EST)
The opening debate addresses some of the most complex dimensions of weight—looking at the ghosts, ruins and inherited pressures of extraction, colonialism and terraforming gestures—to interrogate how histories of violence haunt present ecologies and infrastructures, and how these unresolved spectres press upon cities, territories and bodies.

With Kenny Cupers, Michael Marder, Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari. Drink&Talk moderated by Christele Harrouk.

Fluxes—Changes and Transformations 
Thursday, October 30, 6pm GMT (2pm EST)
Fluxes considers flows of matter, energy and meaning across geographies, infrastructures and communities. This session investigates how global and local circulations condition everyday life—from displacement to supply chains—and how architecture might engage with these fluxes as forms of solidarity and resistance.

With Andrés Jaque, Tiago Patatas, Kathryn Yusoff. Drink&Talk moderated by Federica Zambeletti.

Lighter—How to Make Otherwise 
Friday, October 31, 6pm GMT (2pm EST)
How can weight be reimagined as responsibility, support and resilience rather than burden? Opening a space for discussing forms of architecture and urban life that embrace fragility and erosion, but also play and tenderness, it proposes lighter ways to inhabit the city and to rethink its gravitational pulls.

With Supawut Boonmahathanakorn, Eyal Weizman, Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda. Drink&Talk moderated by Lilet Breddels.

How heavy is a city?
This question instigates the Seventh Lisbon Triennale, turning the Portuguese capital into the epicentre of architectural discourse until December 8. Three main exhibitions, three days of conferences, three awards, a score of independent projects, dozens of activities and a publication (for sale online) measure, map, and question what makes urban life possible, and imagine how cities could be otherwise.