Illustrator Zazie Zanie, with writers Éric Burnand and Hadrien Burnand, presents an illustrated narrative that uses sequential art and lively drawing to stage a rocambolesque investigation.
The comic retraces five decades of a local independent bookstore and Geneva’s militant cultural life, weaving archival echoes with fictionalised episodes. Through rich panels, dialogue and visual detail, the work explores collective memory, self‑management, and the circulation of literature and critical thought. It reveals how small cultural institutions anchor political commitment and communal narratives.

This event presents Parlons Prisons, an anticarceral collective based in Geneva, and the book Parlons Prisons – dedans et dehors contre l’enfermement. The volume gathers testimonies from people deprived of liberty, their relatives and activists, and analyses the prison as a tangible instrument of social control that destroys lives. It examines firsthand accounts and critical perspectives to redistribute voice, reveal systemic effects of incarceration, and argue for abolitionist approaches informed by lived experience.

In French.

Anne Emery‑Torracinta examines Switzerland’s role in Rwanda between 1950 and 1994 in this investigative study. She explores Swiss cooperation before and during the sequence of events that culminated in the 1994 genocide, showing that Switzerland, present in Rwanda since independence, often looked the other way and failed to use its influence to pressure the Rwandan regime. The discussion will be moderated by Jean‑Philippe Ceppi. Book published by éditions Slatkine.

In French.

Thierry Raboud, author of Un monde en liquidation, traces Arctic journeys and cultural memories; Nathalie Dietschy, author of Glaciers alpins sous toiles, assembles photographic records of alpine glaciers. The discussion is moderated by geographer Jonathan Bussard.

It examines how tourist practices, staged polar imagery and long-term photographic archives reveal shifting narratives around glacial loss. Raboud and Dietschy explore myths, visual culture and preservation efforts, revealing how photographic practices and protective interventions shape public understanding of a rapidly changing geologic and cultural heritage.

In French.