Disregard, transgressive and disorganized resource, the edgelands are often fertile hinterland between planned town and over-managed country.

M. Shoard

MATZA EDGELANDS is a MATZA initiative conceived in close collaboration with the EDGELANDS Institute, an organization based in Geneva (Switzerland) and incubated at Harvard University (USA). Planned to last four years, it will take place successively in the cities of Medellin and Cucuta (Colombia), Nairobi (Kenya), Geneva (Switzerland), Chicago (USA), Singapore and Beirut (Lebanon) between 2021 and 2025.

Working side by side, MATZA and the EDGELANDS Institute seek to develop a common working methodology fueled by both the scientific rigor of the academic world and the forward-looking and creative nature of art.

This initiative focuses on today’s large urban centers as new places of power and the issues of security and democracy that run through them. By seeking to build bridges and putting these seven cities of the world in dialogue, MATZA EDGELANDS wishes to explore the renewed forms of social contract that are emerging today, particularly by focusing on the margins of cities and their informal spaces.