[Now in Venice] ① New Architecture That Exploits Humans Less... Searching for the 'Future of the Earth'

2023 Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition Opens
Runs for About 6 Months from October 20 to November 26
Presenting Concerns and Solutions for Global Crises Including Climate Emergency and Population Issues

Venice experienced a severe drought last year. Even during the rainy season, there was hardly any rain, and until early this year, news repeatedly reported that in some parts of Venice, the sea level had dropped so low that it was difficult to float boats. Struck directly by the abnormal climate sweeping the world, the theme of this year’s Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition, which opened on the 20th, was “The Laboratory of the Future.”

Brazil was awarded the Golden Lion, the highest honor at the 2023 Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition, for "Terra," which depicts the country's image as the Earth with the theme of race. The photo shows the exhibition view of the Brazil Pavilion. [Photo by Venice Biennale]

Brazil Pavilion Presents Decolonization and Future Archaeology with Earth as the Theme

Amid diverse perspectives on global environmental and population issues, including abnormal climate, decorating 27 countries and 25 pavilions, the highest honor, the Golden Lion, was awarded to Brazil’s “Terra,” which expressed its national image as Earth through the theme of race. Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares, artistic directors of the Brazil Pavilion, explained the exhibition theme “Terra” by saying, “We started our work based on thinking of Brazil as Earth,” and “Earth as soil, fertilizer, soil and territory. We aimed to embody Earth’s global and cosmic meaning as the planet of all life, including humans, and as a shared habitat.”

Through the exhibition, they presented Brazil as both Earth and a diasporic territory. The Brazil Pavilion’s work, which expanded the realm of architecture by looking at the past and heritage to solve territorial and environmental issues that Earth currently faces, as Earth of memory and Earth of the future, offers the audience a vision of a more equitable future and Earth’s solutions to restore and protect nature.

The Golden Lion, the highest honor at the 2023 Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition, was awarded to Brazil for "Terra," which represents the country's image as the Earth with the theme of race. The photo shows the exhibition view of the Brazil Pavilion. [Photo by Venice Biennale]

What catches the eye in the Brazil Pavilion is the soil. As land issues were mentioned as a specific material of the exhibition, the entire space was filled with soil, designed so that visitors could directly engage with the indigenous Quilombola territory dwellings and the traditional ritual of Candombl?, a ceremony of Africans brought to Brazil as slaves.

The exhibition hall, composed of two sections, first welcomes visitors with works under the title “Canon, Decolonization,” inspired by the displacement of indigenous people and Quilombola residents from the capital Bras?lia during the colonial era. Adding imagination to the deserted Bras?lia, the complex and diverse formation of the nation and the embedded revenge, territory, architecture, and heritage images demonstrate Brazil’s formation, modernity, and heritage and traditional architecture ignored by architectural norms, stimulating the audience’s imagination with a fictional narrative behind the history of Brazil as we know it.

The “Origins, Future Archaeology” section reflects on the social meanings of land, territory, indigenous peoples, Africa, and Brazil through five important cultural heritages. These include the cultural space Casa da Tia Ciata in Rio de Janeiro, the Tava ruins in Rio Grande do Sul, the ethnogeographical complex of Terreiro in Salvador, the indigenous agroforestry system of Rio Negro in the Amazon, and a work on the Iauaret? Falls of the South American indigenous Tukano people, along with a video on archaeology by memory and ancestors, delivering a powerful message to the audience.

Visitors directly participating in the 'Together How' game at the Korea Pavilion exhibition of the 2023 Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition, opened under the theme '2086: How Are We?'.
[Photo by Team Off to Venice]

Momentary Choices as Variables Determining Earth and Humanity’s Future - Korea Pavilion

Although it did not win an award, the Korea Pavilion presented two works based on the theme “2086: How Will We?” emphasizing that moment-to-moment choices in our daily lives are variables that determine the future of Earth and humanity. In particular, it received praise from on-site visitors by providing opportunities for the audience to continuously think, question, and choose on various issues such as perspectives on communities they face in reality, globalization, and capitalism.

The Korea Pavilion consisted of two projects: the “Site-Specific Project - Four Future Communities” and the participatory “Together How Game.” The site-specific project vividly presented urbanization, modernization, and Westernization processes and the conflicts and contradictions arising during these processes in three regions with different scales and contexts: Incheon, a global megacity with a population of 3 million where urban regeneration is actively underway; Gunsan, a mid-sized city with 260,000 people; and low-density villages scattered within Gyeonggi Province with a population of 13.6 million. The project showcased various storytelling-based case studies such as “Ruins as the Future, Future as Ruins,” depicting tensions and conflicts surrounding redevelopment in the Baedari area of East Incheon; “Destructive Creation,” which dismantled a house in Gunsan, facing regional decline due to population cliff and low growth, and brought it directly to Venice; and “Migrating Future,” which raises the issue of coexistence and symbiosis of communities living separately yet together, including migrant workers and natives residing in Gyeonggi Province.

The installation "Destructive Creation" at the Korean Pavilion of the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture. A house in Gunsan, which faced regional decline due to the population cliff and low growth, was dismantled and brought directly to Venice for realization.
[Photo by Korea Arts & Culture Education Service]

The “Together How Game” is an interactive game where the audience participates directly and influences the outcome by answering a total of 14 questions. Through questions addressing issues related to economy, society, resources, and territory, the work requires participants to choose their attitudes and positions. Co-artistic directors Park Kyung and Jung So-ik said, “Instead of asking whether to use plastic or indulge in meat and avocados in this game, we wanted to ask the audience what the essence of our desires is, how much attention they pay to their surroundings, and whether they will act or remain indifferent.”

They added, “This is because we want to emphasize that the current environmental crisis and human extinction scenarios are phenomena resulting from the cumulative social, economic, and political choices we make moment by moment, and thus recognize the importance of every single choice in daily life.” Ultimately, the questions and choices in the “Together How Game” serve as a process of personalizing the issues of environmental crisis and human extinction scenarios, transforming the problem into a story directly connected to oneself without objectifying or externalizing it, thereby encouraging voluntary intervention and effort.

Lesley Lokko, a Ghanaian-born Scottish curator who led this year’s Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition, implemented various models of new architectural methods that exploit humans and nature less, such as decolonization and decarbonization, under the theme “The Laboratory of the Future.”

Additionally, the German Pavilion attracted attention by collecting exhibition materials from various national pavilions after last year’s Venice Biennale Art Exhibition and displaying them in one place, offering a program where visitors could directly create bags or props using these materials, conveying a message about resource recycling. The Spanish Pavilion also explored issues such as carbon dioxide emissions caused by food waste and ecosystem destruction due to plastic waste behind the developed food culture. Various exhibitions at this year’s Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition, which addressed the crises facing Earth through architectural grammar and visual sculptural art, vividly unfold the concerns and imaginative leaps of global architects regarding humanity’s future.