Africa as the epicenter of the Venice Architecture Biennale

'Decolonization and decarbonisation' are themes on which the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - Venice Biennale is structured, taking place from May 20th to November 26th, with Africa as its epicenter and 'The Laboratory of the Future' as its motto.

With official representations from 63 countries, with Portugal and Brazil being the only Portuguese speakers present, according to the presentation of the exhibition held today in Venice, the Bienal also has 89 participants in the exhibitions and special projects of 'O Laboratório do Futuro', in most of Africa and the African diaspora, including Banga Colectivo, an architecture office in Luanda and Lisbon, and the Brazilian atelier Cartografia Negra.
"This will be the first [edition] to experiment on the ground with a path to achieving carbon neutrality, to the point that the exhibition is structured around the themes of decolonization and decarbonization", said, this Tuesday, the president of the Bienal, Roberto Cicutto, at the opening of the exhibition presentation.
The curator of this edition, Lesley Lokko, an architect of Ghanaian origin, born in Scotland, reinforced the breadth of themes to be addressed in an edition that wants with 'The Laboratory of the Future', the African continent as a "protagonist", because, "if there is a place on this planet where all issues of equity, race, hope and fear converge and come together, is Africa". "From the beginning", last year, when Lesley Lokko took over the curatorship and presented the theme of this edition, "it was clear that 'The Laboratory of the Future' would represent 'change'", said, this Tuesday, the architect, recalling how the setting up of the exhibition imposed the debate "on resources, rights and risks".
"The spotlight has fallen on Africa and the African diaspora, that fluid and tangled culture of descendants that spans the globe. What do we want to say? How will anything change what we say? How will it interact with and influence what others say?" the healer. "It is often said that culture is the sum total of the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves. While this is true, what the statement lacks is any recognition" that "the reach and power" of the "dominant voice [ ...] ignore large areas of humanity, at a financial, collective and conceptual level", said Lokko, to underline that "it is in this context that the exhibitions [of the Bienal] matter". For Lokko, the objective is that this edition does not translate a single story and turns out to be "a dazzling and conflicting kaleidoscope of ideas, contexts, aspirations and meanings".

The 'Laboratório do Futuro' comprises six exhibitions, divided between the themes 'Força Maior' and 'Ligações Dangerosas'. The first projects will focus on the Central Pavilion, favoring African or diaspora architects, such as Diébédo Francis Kéré, from Burkina Faso, Kabage Karanja, from Kenya, David Adjaye, from Tanzania, Guillaume Koffi, from Ivory Coast, and Christian Benimana, from Rwanda. The Arsenal, another of the main areas of the Bienal, will host 'Dangerous Liaisons' from architecture to other disciplines, through professionals from five continents, such as Serge Attukwei Clottey, from Ghana, Paulo Tavares and Glória Cabral, from Brazil, the French Léopold Lambert, from the Funambuliste project, who are joined, in a "special participation", by Israeli filmmaker and architect Amos Gitai, photographer James Morris, from Wales, and "architecture poet" Lionheartfelt, from London.
The curator's "special projects", which address topics ranging from food, agriculture and climate change, to issues of gender, geography and memory, have 30 participants, such as the Black Females in Architecture office, from London, and Cartografia Negra, from Brazil , in addition to Banga Colectivo, included in the emerging values ('Guests from the Future').
The Biennial's collaboration with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London will be translated into the exhibition 'Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Power in West Africa', traversing symbols of the colonial past, simultaneously witnessing the rupture with that past, said the director of the British museum, Tristram Hunt, in today's presentation. The official Portuguese representation, presented last week, is made by the 'Fertile Futures' project, curated by Andreia Garcia, which addresses the scarcity of fresh water and the search for solutions to sustainable management of water resources, based on seven national cases: "the impact of the Gigabattery in the Tâmega basin; the breach of the convention in the International Douro; mining in the Middle Tagus; the imposition of interests in the Alqueva Albufeira; the anarchy in the irrigation perimeter of the Mira River; the overloading of the lagoons in Lagoa das Sete Cidades and the risk of flooding in Ribeiras Madeirenses".

The pre-opening of the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale will take place on the 18th and 19th of May, and the awarding of prizes to the national representations will take place at the opening, on the 20th of May.