Venice Biennale 2023: architecture bets on Africa – Corriere.it

For some time the Venice Biennale has taken on the task of showing the world what does not have Latin and European roots and for the XVIII Architecture Exhibition it does so without balancing act or counterweight. Ghanaian curator Lesley Lokko, architect and Writer, presents for “the first time” an edition (naturally carbon neutral) focused exclusively on Africa and the African diaspora, or rather “on that fluid culture that today crosses the world”. This exhibition, which will be open from 20 May (until 26 November)follows the Art Exhibition curated by Cecilia Alemani who had already focused on forgotten African artists, but not exclusively.

The Laboratory of the Future And a six-part exhibition, includes 89 participants, of which well over half from Africa or from the African diaspora (and the others almost all from outside Europe; four Italian collectives). «Gender balance is guaranteed» (as in elections), the average age of the participants is 43 years (an age in which one begins to be an architect). 46% of participants consider training as a real professional activity and, for the first time, half come from individual studios or studios made up of fewer than five components: over 70% of the works on display were designed by studios managed by a single . Needless to name names: the only one known to non-experts is Diébédo Francis Kéré.

«In architecture – says the curator – there is a lack of recognition of who is the we because until today there has been an exclusive voice, which ignores part of humanity. Architecture spoke only one language and its history is incomplete. It’s time to change and retell this story. This is the ground on which to build change». You will see few projects and much thought on social change, inclusiveness, gender and safeguarding the planet. At the center is the primacy of the imagination, “a tool for building a better world”. The main African professionals “who are redefining the practice as it was unimaginable ten years ago” will exhibit in the central pavilion at the Giardini. In Dangerous Liason 37 professionals from various geographies will be at the Arsenale: «They are practitioner, not architects or urban planners, because a different preparation is required in Africa. There are individuals or small studios while the larger ones deal with social policy». Special Projects is a broad, out-of-competition category that focuses on food, agriculture, climate, geography, gender, and mnemonics.

In Laboratory of the Future twenty-two emerging artists will define «the architect of the future». Special participations of Amos Gitai, James Morris (who, of course, is not «the first architect-poet» since Michelangelo and Bramante already wrote sonnets) and LionHeartfelt. For the collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, focus on decolonization and tropical modernism, or how architecture has been a means of coercion, but also of liberation.

There are 63 national pavilions (Niger new entry) and the Holy See returns. vforbidden the Russian Pavilion, decision on which the undersecretary Vittorio Sgarbi disagrees. The Italian Pavilion is titled SPACIAL: Everyone belongs to everyone else and is curated by Fosbury Architecture. At the call to participate in the Biennale College project, an experimental school of architecture on decolonization and decarbonization, 986 applications have arrived: five hundred students will work and a documentary will be produced.

“The vision of a modern, diverse and inclusive society it is seductive and persuasive, but as long as it remains an image, it remains only a mirage. It is necessary – adds Lokko – something more than a representation and architects, historically, are key players in translating images into reality».

And here we have found, then, the point of reality and meeting between Venice and Africa: the carnival. “There is a coincidence between the carnival of Venice and the African diaspora: carnival is a moment of liberation in which slaves could be free for a week (ed, no mention of the function of carnival in the Catholic calendar). For this, communicators and other actors will organize public events, which are a way to bridge the gap between architecture and the public».