Not -Yet Festival, re:turn (Architectural Association Interprofessional Studio)

Doors 6pm, performance 6.30pm

As the first installation of the Not-Yet Festival, re:turn is an experimental performance at the intersection of spatial and interdisciplinary practice. 

The work stages hope as an active, material process, unfolding through contradiction and cyclical patterns of leaving and arriving, assembling and disassembling, collecting and dispersing. Hope is not anticipation but a mode of constructing which emerges through duration, suspension and repetition.

re:turn is a testing ground for choreographed and musical performances in active conversation with their spatial environment. Operating under an improvisational structure with negotiated dependencies, the work distributes agency across bodies, spatial objects and the immaterial.

The performance explores the possibilities of return: of building a home away from home and of ending only to begin again. Interacting systems create a nested loop where arrival already contains departure, and leaving prepares the ground for re-attachment.

“True genesis is not at the beginning but at the end...” - Ernst Bloch

The performance run time is 30minutes and will be followed by a Q&A with the artists. 

The AA Interprofessional Studio - AAIS, consists of MA and MFA students from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, exploring practices of spatial performance and design beyond standard definitions of architecture and performance. The programme functions as an Interdisciplinary Studio, investigating overlaps between creative work and design, during the development of projects and events.

In 2025-26 academic year, inspired by the works of Bruno Latour, Ernst Bloch and Thomas More, AAIS started by asking the question: How can spatial and performative design anticipate realities not yet born? The work presented will then be developed for Færderbiennalen, a Dance and Architecture Festival, in Norway in June 2026.

PROGRAMME DIRECTOR: Theo Lorenz

PROGRAMME RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: Tanja Siems

STUDIO TUTORS: Argyris Angeli, Mona Camille, Nerma Cridge, Heiko Kalmbach, Kyriaki Nasioula, Pierre Nedd, Gemma Nixon, Patricia Okenwa, Thomas Parkes, Noa Segev, Atimanyu Vashishth, Renaud Wiser

STUDENTS: Antonio Saucedo Azpe, Yingying Cheng, Xiaoke Ding, Ojasvini Goel, Deniz Kangüleç, Bianca Lee, Xujun Lu, Eemaan Rashid, Ying Ying Cecily Tong, Ziyue Wang, Hao Wu, Wendi Zheng

Stone Nest is an arts organisation and performance venue in the heart of London's West End, bringing exceptional and experimental art to a wide audience. A hidden gem nestled amidst the bright lights of theatreland, it offers a platform for bold, visionary artists and a space where audiences can encounter an eclectic programme of contemporary performance.

Stone Nest is an old building and, unfortunately, cannot currently accommodate electric wheelchairs. We can accommodate manually operated wheelchairs via a temporary ramp; please let us know that you are a wheelchair user when booking and whether a Companion will be accompanying you, and we will arrange a Companion ticket for you.