The Bartlett academics feature at the Venice Biennale

The Biennale is the architecture industry’s biggest annual event, featuring exhibitions and displays, music performances and huge installations organised by different countries. This year’s Biennale is titled ‘How Will We Live Together?’ and is curated by architect and scholar Hashim Sarkis.

Professor Mariana Mazzucato (Director, UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose) is one of eight co-designers of an installation celebrating the 75^th anniversary of the United Nations. The installation, ‘Future Assembly’, will focus on the UN’s past and also look to the future, imagining a UN assembly that incorporates not only the voices of the planet’s human inhabitants, but also other members of our ecosystem.

The installation – which will be in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini – will feature a display of 50 more-than-human ‘stakeholders’ including fungi, estuaries and ephemeral gases, convening on a world map. It will also represent human attempts to recognise and protect the rights of nature during the 75-year history of the UN.

Professor Mazzucato said: “Fifty years ago we sent a man to the moon – and back. There is no reason why we cannot apply the same level of investment, risk-taking and innovation to our greatest social problems.

“But first we must treat them with the same level of urgency – doing it ‘not because it is easy, but because it is hard’.”

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN said: “This ‘Future Assembly’ exhibition calls on all of us to re-imagine new pathways for our global governance architecture, and to strengthen multilateralism so that it is more networked and inclusive.

“At this pivotal moment for people and planet, the United Nations is determined to work with all partners to uphold our shared values, navigate common challenges and seize the opportunities of the century ahead.”

There will also be nine exhibitions or collaborations from the Bartlett School of Architecture at the Biennale, across a number of national pavilions as well as in the main exhibition.

In the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, PhD candidate and tutor Justinien Tribillon will contribute to the research-based installation ‘Station’ with his project ‘Welcome to Borderland’.

In the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL:

Professor Marjan Colletti will take part in the Italian Virtual Pavilion, Sezione del Padiglione Italia, as one of the Creative Directors for the exhibition titled ‘CityX Venice’.

MPhil/PhD student Niccolò Casas has produced an installation for the Italian Pavilion in collaboration with environmental organisation Parley for the Oceans.

Déborah López and Hadin Charbel are exhibiting ‘Follicle. A Toxi-Cartographic proposal for Bangkok’ at the Spanish Pavilion through their studio, Pareid.

Dr Claudio Pasquero and Dr Marco Poletto will present two projects. ‘BIT.BIO.BOT’ will be the main curator exhibition in the Corderie section and will explore re-greening cities and architecture in the face of ecological crisis. ‘Urbansphere’ substitutes obsolete notions with algorithms to embody a prototype for a future bio-digital infrastructure.

Katie Kasabalis, Konstantina Tzemou, Evan Shieh, Sze Wai Justin Kong, Inhwi Hwang and Chengxin Sha will exhibit ‘Manaus: A New Contractual Agreement between City and forest in Urban Amazonia’ in the Central Pavilion.

Serhan Ahmet Tekbaş and Thanasis Ikonomou will exhibit ‘Artifact 126: The Firepit’ in the Cypriot Pavillion. They are engaged with Cypriot architecture and design and interested in architecture as a medium to look back at history and forwards to the future at the same time.

Valentina Soana is exhibiting ‘ELAbody’ in the Italian Pavilion under the theme ‘Resilient Communities’ with Vijay M Pawar and Robert Stuart-Smith from the Automated Manufacturing Lab at UCL.

Professor Laura Allen and Professor Mark Smout will exhibit ‘Rescue Lines’ for the Giardini Central Pavillion and have contributed to the UN installation Future Assembly, nominating ‘Hedgerows’ as a more-than-human stakeholder.

Professor Adrian Forty has contributed to two publications that will be launched at the Biennale. These are a short essay on the history of the Nordic Pavilion and a contribution to a publication around Sauerbruck Hutton’s new museum in Mestre, launching at the same time.

Venice Biennale curator Hashim Sarkis, Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT, said: “The world is putting new challenges in front of architecture. I look forward to working with participating architects from around the world to imagine together how we are going to rise to these challenges.”

More information on individual projects can be found on the webpages of the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL and the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose.

Links

• Venice Biennale
• Future Assembly at the Venice Biennale
• News story on the Bartlett School of Architecture’s page
• News story on the Bartlett School of Planning’s page
• News story on the Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose’s page
• Professor Mariana Mazzucato’s academic profile
• The Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment

Image

• The Future Assembly installation at the Venice Biennale. Credit: Venice Biennale

Media contact

Kate Corry

Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 6995

Email: k.corry [at] ucl.ac.uk