Located in the heart of the Old Town, in the birthplace of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the MRL is a six-story cultural hub centered on literature. The venue features a permanent exhibition on Rousseau and engages with contemporary issues related to his works. It hosts debates, performances, and educational activities, while also offering residencies for writers and researchers. Additionally, visitors can enjoy a café within the space.
Catarina von Wedemeyer, Maître d’enseignement et de recherche at the University of Geneva, is a specialist in Latin American literatures. She held a Humboldt fellowship at Columbia University and is author of Offene Dialektik.
This bilingual series examines Borges’ key stories in relation to twentieth‑century movements such as ultraism and fantastic literature, debating New Historicism and universality. Sessions offer comparative readings with Victoria Ocampo, Silvana Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares, and address poetic analysis and Borges’ cultural interests.
Alice Botelho, born in Geneva in 2000, graduated from the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel and gained attention for theatrical adaptations of Nelly Arcan and a Bachelor thesis noted for its photographic prose.
This award ceremony includes readings of extracts from her debut novel Folie entre mes doigts and a discussion of the book’s themes: memory, image, and the interplay of color and contrast that shapes her narrative voice. She will reflect on creative process and form.
In French.
This workshop honours the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges through tango practice, combining cultural reflection with embodied learning. Participants explore tango as an improvised dance that develops concentration, body awareness, listening, and spatial perception. The session includes a beginners’ technique class followed by open practice, emphasizing connection, nonverbal communication, and improvisational decision-making. It examines how movement-based practice can foster creativity, attention and personal growth while engaging with Borges’s literary legacy.
Metin Arditi, francophone writer of Turkish origin and award-winning novelist (Le Turquetto, prix Jean Giono; L’enfant qui mesurait le monde, prix Méditerranée), brings decades of literary engagement with Istanbul and history.
This lecture examines Arditi’s Constantinople Trilogy, exploring themes of cosmopolitan identity, displacement, love and the violences of twentieth-century history. It examines character fates across Istanbul and Lausanne, investigating memory, social upheaval, and the search for origins.
In French.
Build and explore braille by snapping bricks together to form letters and words. Children play and handle LEGO Braille Bricks to feel the raised patterns and learn how the tactile alphabet works. Through playful challenges and small construction games, they read by touch, create their own words, and discover different ways of communicating. The workshop is hands-on, sensory, and encourages curiosity, cooperation, and inclusive thinking.
In French. Kids ages 8 and up.
Marisa Cornejo, Chilean artist based between Switzerland and Chile, trained in contemporary dance and visual arts with an MA. Her research on memory and forced migration informs her performance and archive-based practice.
This workshop explores writing from dream and sound memories, examining somatic memory, fragility, and vulnerability. Participants will draft texts from dreams and auditory recollections, develop dialogues to surface alternative interpretations, and use techniques — dream recall, handwriting, drawing, sound and collage — to expand narratives and collective strategies for articulating embodied memory.
English, Spanish, and French are all welcome.
Culture, curated weekly.
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