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A Moving Border. Alpine Cartographies of Climate Change

Marco Ferrari will present his latest book "A Moving Border. Alpine Cartographies of Climate Change" on september 15th

Event, Research Seminar

In 2009, Italy and Switzerland signed an agreement that introduced into law the notion of “moving border.” Since the 1990s, surveyors of both countries had been noticing that the melting of Alpine glaciers—where much of the border lies—was causing the lines on the ground to drift away from their representation on official maps. Born out of practical necessity, this little-known agreement is possibly the first instance of two sovereign states recognising the instability of their national territory in the face of global warming.

Book présentation

A Moving Border. Alpine Cartographies of Climate Change is a book about this history, as well as the ambiguous nature of borders—zones of othering, markers of sovereignty, malleable cartographic inscriptions, shifting geophysical terrains—in the current condition of climate crisis and mass migration. The book is based on Italian Limes, a long-term project by Studio Folder that maps the moving border across the Alps in real time, and has been initially presented at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia, in 2014.

Marco Ferrari's bio

Marco Ferrari is an architect and researcher. He is the co-founder of Studio Folder, a design practice based in Milan, Italy. The studio develops projects commissioned both by cultural institutions and private clients, working through editorial, digital and exhibition design, while pursuing autonomous research paths that explore the politics of representation and territory. Together with Andrea Bagnato and Elisa Pasqual, he is the author of A Moving Border. Alpine Cartographies of Climate Change, a book based on Studio Folder’s long-term project Italian Limes, and jointly published by Columbia Books on Architecture and the City and ZKM Karlsruhe in Spring 2019. 

Between 2005 and 2011 he has been one of the founding members of the architectural collective Salottobuono, and a regular graphics editor for Abitare magazine, before being appointed Creative Director of Domus magazine in 2011. He has been teaching Methods and Tools for Representation at ISIA Urbino since 2010, and led an Information Design studio at IUAV University in Venice between 2013 and 2016. He is adjunct visiting professor at Columbia GSAPP, and visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art.

Practical information

Seminar open to all, by videoconference only.

Pre-registration required: register