Research
Artistic
Alongside its academic development, The Intimate Maquettes Lab also serves as a space for artistic creation. In 2021, following a collaboration with director Daniele Finzi Pasca, 52 was created: a production by Compagnia Finzi Pasca, directed by Daniele and performed by Pablo Gershanik. The work was presented in Italian, English, and French at festivals in Switzerland, Italy, and Canada.
Gershanik is currently developing the book Eighty Bullets to the Wing in collaboration with Colombian visual artist Luis Carlos Tovar. It is a photographic work constructed from the original archives of the maquette project that gave rise to this research: Eighty Bullets to the Wing. Its publication is scheduled for 2027.
Academic
Origins and development
The Intimate Maquettes Lab began in 2017 as an artistic and personal experience in which Pablo Gershanik, the project’s creator, sought to reconstruct the facilities of the former ESMA, the Navy Mechanics School and one of the largest concentration camps in the Americas. Taking as its starting point a traumatic family experience connected to political violence in Argentina during the 1970s, the project set out to explore the links between representation, memory, and social bonds.
In 2019, the project moved to Paris, where a new and original process began, bringing the proposal to people affected by war, terrorist attacks, and forced migration as an artistic tool for representing lived experiences through metaphor.
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Soon afterward, an invitation came from the Master’s Program in Drama Therapy at the University of Paris, where the methodology of The Intimate Maquettes Lab was proposed for inclusion in the official curriculum.
At the same time, the project continued to expand its lines of research and its audiences. Over the course of approximately forty laboratories, artists, therapists, social workers, and educators from Europe and the Americas have created hundreds of maquettes intended to rework narratives arising from experiences of violence.
Following an invitation from Concordia University to teach and disseminate this methodology, the project reached Canada, where Gershanik is currently studying it as part of a doctoral program in the Arts.
The research, focused on the creation of artistic devices in post-violence contexts, currently benefits from significant support. Among these is the doctoral scholarship for academic excellence awarded by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
Downloadable documents
Unravelling Memories: The Metaphor as a Possibility of Resilience
Le soin de la métaphore